



Presented -e— 

"•WITH-THE'COMPLIMENTS-OF- 

•THE-PASSENGER-DEPARTMENT-OF- 

eULUTH SOUTH SHORE e-ATLANTIC 



^^ 



fll^ 



w^L^o 1893 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE 



OF 



LAKE SUPERIOR. 



COPYRIGHTED BY 
B. HIBBARD, GENERAL PASSENGER AGENT, 
DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE & ATLANTIC r'y, 
iSoo. 



? -s^ ' 



-AMERICAN BANK NOTE CO. 



33741 



A SECRET AND A WORD ASIDE. 



I am a palmer, as ye see, 

Whyche of my lyfe much part have spent 
In many a fayre and farre countrie 

As pilgrims do of good intent. 

—Old Ballad. 



The man who always writes three 
weeks ahead of the season to his land- 
lord at Long Branch, to order the same 
little bedroom he has gone to every 
year of the last twenty, must regard 
me as a stupid fellow for introducing 
still another retreat for tourists and 
tired folk. Why, heavens and earth ! 
he must say, there are too many places 
to go to already. The Flying Dutch- 
man himself could not get around to 
all of them. 

But the truth of the matter is that 
there never can be too many such 
books as this, or too many of Nature's 
beauty-spots to celebrate. I do not 
say so because this region happens to be 
more lovely and salubrious than most 
of the others, or because there are still 
trysting places for Dame Nature and 
her lovers that are unheralded and un- 
sung. My argument — call it a discov- 
ery, if you please — is, that the main 
desideratum of the people is change. 

You can almost sum up happiness 
in that one word ; you can almost an- 
alyze Rest, or its first cousin. Recrea- 
tion, in that little word change. 

"You'll find no change in me," said 
the rich man, as he buttoned his pock- 
ets when the poor relative told 
him his tale of woe. And so, 
in a serious sense, you will find no 



change in the dull routine of the labor- 
er and the sempstress in their city gar- 
rets. And, do not their faces show it 
— do not their intellects feel it? So 
strong is the demand for this magic 
quality called "change," that poor and 
unlucky indeed is the city man and 
woman, now-a-days, who does not plan 
a week's change of scene in the high 
tide of each summer. Follow him or 
her and see how wretched a room they 
get, what poor fare their little money 
buys. But they get the change of scene 
they want, the change of faces and of 
habits — the change ! the change ! 

What else do you suppose prompts 
wealthy men and women to go and 
coop up in those great seaside barracks 
at Narragansett Pier and Cape May 
and Long Branch? What tempts a 
lovely lady to leave her suite of elegant 
rooms, her boudoir, her dressing-room, 
her bath-room and her bedroom, to 
share a bed with her daughter in one 
little room at the seaside ? Why, 
Change ! Change ! So, then, come 
with me to the south shore of Lake 
Superior, and get some change your- 
self. 

And not small change, to revert to 
the joke with its double definition, but 
abrupt, delightful, almost startling 
change! 



THE GREAT INLAND SEA. 



In a word, I am going with you 
to skirt the southern shore of Lake 
Superior, that great bowl which we, 
magnificent belittlers of the grandest 
of Nature's achievements, call a lake, 
yet which, were it in Europe, would 
have become one of the seas of the 
world, paraded by navies and dividing 
empires. 

"Two hundred and thirty-two years 
ago the first white man stood on the 
<j^^. shores of 

'"^^ Lake Supe 
rior." 
^*^ writes 



Thus 
Con- 



the wilderness and its savages, cold 
and hunger, torture and death, for no 
hope of earthly reward, for no gold 
mines, for no fountain of youth, but 
simply for the salvation of souls. And, 
whatever posterity may think of the 
utility of their work, it must at least 
admire the courage and devotion of 
these fathers, who, almost without ex- 
ception, laid down their lives for the 
cause. What can a man do more ? Five 
years later came the turn of this first 
white man of Lake Superior, murdered 
by the Indians in the forests near the 
Mohawk River. 




stance Fenimore Woolson, in "Pict- 
uresque America." " Before him was 
assembled a crowd of Indians — two 
thousand Ojibways and other Algon- 
quins — listening, with curiosity, to the 
strange tidings he brought, and, in 
some instances, allowing the mystic 
drops to be poured upon their fore- 
heads; for, like all explorers of the 
lake-country, this man was a mission- 
ary. Only religious zeal could brave 



" Since that first visit, more than 
two centuries ago — a long time for 
fast-moving American history — the 
great lake has remained almost un- 
known to the world of books. Even 
now, while the far Pacific Coast is 
pictured and described in all the mag- 
azines and newspapers of the day, 
portions of Lake Superior remain 
}erra incognita ; and with the excep- 
tion of dry surveys and geological 



THE GREAT INLAND SEA. 



reports^ the libraries are barren of its 
very name. And yet the scenery is 
grand beyond the power of verbal de- 
scription. Stored away in its bays are 
groups of islets as fair as any in 
Southern seas. All along its shore are 
waterfalls, some silvery, some claret- 
colored; some falling two hundred feet 
over a precipice, and others leaping 
down the cliffs in a long series of cas- 
cades. In parts of the coast the sand- 
stone rocks are worn and fretted into 
strange shapes of castles, faces and fig- 
ures, which stand out like sculpture; 
and farther north, porphyry cliffs tower 
above the water — a perpendicular cliff 
thirteen hundred and fifty feet high — 
stern guardians of the silver at their 
base. Mirage of wonderful beauty is 
seen on the lake; and the Indians 
had many a tale of lost islands float- 
ing in charge of a Manitou, veiled 
at his will in silver fog. Persons cross- 
ing from point to point in their canoes 
would bring strange tales of these 
islets ; but though they searched a 
lifetime through, they never could find 
one of them again." 

This charming authoress tells of a 
young white man of quite peculiar 
susceptibility, who met upon the shore 
of the huge lake a dusky Chippewa 
maiden and became so infatuated with 
her that his parents sent him East 
that the memory of her charms might 
die in his mind. But neither the 
Bowery nor Boston Common, nor 
even the belles of Brooklyn, could 
work the change, and the last glimpse 
we get of him in the tale is as he 
speeds away in a canoe with the to- 
bacco-colored maiden to find a priest 
to make him half — that is, to make 
the twain a unit. 

Mine was a different fortune when 
I first touched the hem — if I may 
borrow a woman's word — of that vast 
sheet of water. Instead of a maiden 
of the hue of a ham I found upon the 
shore a little boy. I must have dis- 
turbed him in a cause in which he felt 
that two could not engage, for as I ap- 
proached he stooped and, seizing a 
pebble, flung it into the water. 



" There ! " said he, *' That settles 
it. I'll never see you again." 

I engaged him in a moment's con- 
versation and learned that this was 
his very original method of bidding 
adieu to the lake which had been re- 
garded by him as a sort of companion 
and playmate, for he had no brothers 
and sisters, and of houses there were 
none other than his own home in 
many miles around. 

"Do you like living here?" I in- 
quired. 

" Yes, I do," he said, quite posi- 
tively ; " and Pop likes it, but Marm 
says there ain't no sassiety here and 
she wont stand it — and whatever 
Marm says ' goes ' with Pop — and that 
settles it." 

I felt in my heart that the woman 
was right ; indeed, in a moment the 
boy took himself off and I, too, was 
left without "sassiety." 

I could feel the immensity of the 
unsalted sea that reached away before 
me. Since then I have come upon 
Superior at different points, and every- 
where that imperial quality has im- 
pressed itself upon my mind. It is 
not merely big in itself, it is big in all 
its environments and details, in what 
you might call all its features. In 
few parts of the coast of the Atlantic 
itself has Nature done such bold, 
majestic work as she scatters lavishly 
all around Lake Superior ; indeed, 
south of New England the Atlantic 
is dependent upon the imagination of 
the beholder for the awe and respect 
it inspires, since what might be called 
its shore scenery is everywhere tame. 
Very, very far from tame is the setting 
of this grand bowl of clearest water 
which our nation seems to be holding 
above its head, as if in a perpetual 
invitation for all the world to partake 
of our bounty ; or, better yet, as if 
holding up a goblet in offer of this 
incessant toast to all mankind : 

"Your Health." 

Massive rocky walls, giant cliffs, 
fierce battlemented rocks are the char- 
acteristics of Superior's shores; mighty 
fortifications against the still mightier 



DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE &' ATLANTIC RAILWAF. 



water, for everywhere the eternal 
masonry of the land is torn and ragged. 

The great lake is four hundred and 
sixty miles long and one hundred and 
seventy miles in width. We are told 
that the earliest French missionaries 
reported it shapen like a bow, with the 
arch of the weapon on the Canadian 
side, and the straight cord forming 
our frontier. No one can improve 
upon that description, especially apt 
just here, because it is along that 
straight cord that the Duluth, At- 
lantic & South Shore Railway 
makes its inviting way, and leads, or 
rather takes, my kind readers and my- 
self. 

Well named " The Short Line." 

This new bidder for the favors of 
the traveling public is second to no 
railroad in the world in any of the par- 
ticulars that go to make the comfort, 
the safety or the saving of time which 
must ever be the excuses of corpora- 
tions for building new lines and of the 
public for patronizing them. If you 
look upon a map of our country and 
draw your pencil from Sault Ste. Marie 
at one end of Lake Superior, to Duluth 
at the other end, you will have marked 
a straight line— a fact of vast import- 
ance in considering the merits of a 
railroad — and that straight line is the 
route of this railway that invites us 
to enjoy the beautiful region which it 
has rescued from the wilderness and 
is now offering to the people; the 
people who are undertaking the 
mighty task of nation building as well 
as the people who seek health or rest 
or Nature's loveliest phases. 

We have all read of the manner in 
which a mighty Tsar called for a map 
of Russia, and laying a ruler across 
it drew a pencil line straight from one 
great city to another, saying " Build a 
road on that route." We have no 
Tsar here, but if we had it would be 
scarcely possible for him to have 
ordered a more direct highway across 
the continent than this railway forms 
a part of. 

While the map is before you please 
note the fact that if you continue 



that line you have drawn beneath 
Lake Superior, and push your pencil 
across the continent, it will pass 
through Fargo and Bismarck and Spo- 
kane Falls and will dip into the Pacif- 
ic Ocean at Seattle and Tacoma. For 
you will have unconsciously drawn the 
route of the Northern Pacific R.R. 
Go back now and push the line east- 
ward, and you will run it through 
Montreal. You cannot parallel that 
pencil mark anywhere else upon the 
map and find anything like so straight 
a route that railway men have previ- 
ously marked upon the actual face 
of our country with their enduring 
lines of steel. The Duluth, South 
Shore & Atlantic Railway was 
needed to complete that perfect con- 
summation of the traveler's ideal, to 
connect the East and West, directly, 
without those irreparable losses that 
most railways are obliged to cause 
their passengers by unavoidable in- 
directness. 

By way of Montreal, in the swift, 
gliding palace coaches of the Cana- 
dian Pacific Railway, the traveler from 
Boston or New York will easily con- 
vince himself that, though his cities 
are off this great transcontinental high- 
way, his loss of time in reaching it is 
vastly less than he will suffer by taking 
any other route. Though it is no part 
of my allotted task to speak of any 
other than the magnificent region 
along the south shore of Lake Su- 
perior, I cannot keep from my mind 
the memory of the really wonderful 
novelties and delight that I enjoyed 
in making just that journey piece- 
meal from ocean to ocean. In Can- 
ada the way runs through a country 
new born to the influences of civiliza- 
tion, a region of woodland, lake and 
stream, the reservoir whence the great 
lakes draw their supply. Then the 
majestic stretch south of Lake Su- 
perior, incomparable in its scenic and 
its sanitary qualities, new born also, 
but born to the mighty and progress- 
ive force of American enterprise, 
and fairly throbbing with the activity 
of its development. 



THE GREAT INLAND SEA. 



The eastern man who journeys 
through the west is often struck with 
the unlikeness, if I may use the word, 
of much of that great region to the 
older parts of the country. He does 
not draw a favorable comparison be- 
tween the diversified, picturesque and 
often romantic scenery of the thirteen 
original colonies with the mighty 
monotony of the plains or the bare 
hugeness of the western mountains. 
But on the south shore of Lake Su- 
perior he is surprised to feel himself 
at home. Be he how prejudiced he 
may, he must realize that in this great 
boudoir of dame Nature, there is both 
the variety and the witchery of his 
own familiar climes, blended often 
with a boldness and majesty that it 
will puzzle him to try to parallel nearer 
the Atlantic region. 

And so he passes on to the imperial 
prairie that we were taught to look 
upon as the Great American Desert. 
By the way, how that desert used to 
shrink in the geographies as year suc- 
ceeded year ! It dried up like a pool 
in the sun, it dwindled like the differ- 
ence between the picture of the hip- 
popotamus on the circus posters and 
the real little pink beast in the tank 
inside the tent. Finally it came to be 
a sort of nettle rash that broke out 
upon a part of Utah — and then it 
vanished altogether. 

And now the traveler will not find 
the great prairie especially pretty to 
look at from the car windows, but he 
will obtain food for wonder -as he 
comes upon town after town, sprawl- 



ing thousands of wooden houses, upon 
miles of the sea of grass. He will 
come back with a slight misgiving 
about that conceit he has felt as a 
New Yorker, and will find himself 
wondering how long it will be before 
some of those mushrooms of the plains 
will be demanding their rights to hold 
future World's Fairs. But before he 
does come back he will be whirled up 
the Rockies and over their crests, and 
will drop into the glory of sun and 
verdure on the other side to find that 
the straight line he has been pursuing 
across the continent needs only just a 
little bending down through the Willa- 
mette Valley to terminate it at San 
Francisco. 

A wonderful line that ! A wonder- 
ful journey ! 

And no part of it is more wonder- 
ful or worthy of description than the 
stretch of nearly half a thousand miles 
beside the gleaming waters of that 
great inland sea upon which Long- 
fellow causes the mystic Hiawatha to 
embark and sail away into that non- 
existence which the poet has trans- 
formed into perpetual life. 



" On the clear and luminous water 
Launched his birch-canoe for sailing ; 
From the pebbles of the margin 
Shoved it forth into the water ; 
Whispered to it ' Westward ! Westward ! ' 
And with speed it darted forward, 
And the evening sun descending 
Set the clouds on fire with redness ; 
Burned the broad sky like a prairie ; 
Left upon the level water 
One long track and trail of splendor, 
Down whose stream as down a river. 
Westward, Westward, Hiawatha 
Sailed into the fiery sunset, 
Sailed into the purple vapors. 
Sailed into the dusk of evening." 




ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



The few who have traversed the 
region bordering the '^ Great Unsalted 
Sea" have usually begun the journey 
at its outlet and ended it at the 
"Zenith City" which Proctor Knott 
laughed into celebrity. We will ask 
those who travel with us to vary the 
the itinerary, beginning at its extreme 
western end. 

St. Louis Bay, separated from the 
lake itself by a narrow strip of land, 
or more properly two, called Minne- 
sota and Wisconsin points, forming a 
natural harbor of many miles in ex- 
tent, was first visited by civilized men 
in 1632 as nearly as history records. 
In 1 64 1 Fathers Daniel and Breboeuf 
were invited to visit the lake but 
came no further than Sault Ste. Marie. 
The first white men to leave an actual 
reference to this territory were Pierre 
D' Esprit (Sieur Radisson) and Madard 
Chanart (Sieur des Groselliers) m the 
fall of 1661. In 1667 the Jesuit tather. 



■~i 



the Hudson Bay Company's men were 
driven away by the newly formed 
Northwest Company — the great trading 
company which was succeeded by 
John Jacob Astor's American Com- 
pany after the act of 181 6, after which 
the Americans controlled everything 
in this vicinity. The early settlements 
were not where Duluth stands but on 
the opposite shore. 

DULUTH, named after the noted 
Frenchman, Du Lhut, stands on the 
north shore of the bay, at the extreme 
western end of the great chain of 
lakes, 1750 miles from Quebec and 
1200 from Buffalo. Although in age 
it should be almost a baby in arms, 
it has nearly 50,000 inhabitants, 
and is called the " Chicago of Lake 
Superior." Its natural situation is 






r-^'kr^o^'f<' 



1^ 







^^t< 






Claude Allouez, mentions his visit to 
the head of the lake, accompanied by 
several traders, and from this time 
forward a rich traffic in furs was car- 
ried on. 

THE ZENITH CITY. 

In 1679 Daniel Greysohlon Du Lhut 
came to the head of the lake with a 
band of coiireur des bois, making his 
headquarters in this neighborhood 
for several years. There is a conflict 
of evidence as to whether Du Lhut or 
the Hudson's Bay Company first es- 
tablished the old trading post on the 
south shore of the bay, but in 1787 



picturesque in the extreme. From a 
narrow beach abrupt hills rise to a 
height of five hundred feet. Upon 
the summit of the ridge thus formed 
and on what must have been the for- 
mer level of the lake is a natural road- 
bed one hundred to two hundred and 
fifty feet wide, which local enterprise 
has transformed into Terrace Drive, 
giving limitless views of the bay, the 
majestic lake and the surrounding 
country. 

A few miles back of the hills are nu- 
merous lakes and streams, and the lat- 
ter follow their courses to the brow of 
the hill. Thence they dash downward 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 




through the heart of the city, leaping 
and tumbhng over rocky beds in in- 
numerable and beautiful waterfalls and 
cascades, reaching the shore of the 
lake at last there to mingle with its 
waters their spent floods. On either 
side of these streams are deep ravines, 
some wild and rugged and others slop- 
ing gently and thickly studded with 
trees. Advantage is being taken of 
these natural formations to establish a 
system of parks which promises to be 
the most picturesque and unique in 
the world. 

Westward from Duluth are the 
DALLES OF THE ST. LOUIS, of 
which another writer says: "Here 
Nature is harsh, rugged and sombre, 
tearing her way in a water course four 
miles long with a descent of four hun- 
dred feet. The banks are formed of 
cold gray slate rocks, clad with an 
ample growth of bleak pine, and 
twisted, split and torn into the wild- 
est shapes. Through the dismal 
channel thus bordered the current 
surges with terrific force, leaping 
and eddying, and uttering a sav- 
age roar that the neighboring hills 
sullenly reverberate. Here and 
there an immense boulder opposes, 
and is nearly hidden by the seeth- 
ing, hissing, foamy waves, which 
— dance and struggle around and 
over it, sometimes submerging it, and 
then, exhausted, falling into a quieter 
pace. Occasionally the spray leaps 
over the banks, and forms a silver 
thread of a rivulet, which trickles over 
the stones until its little stream tum- 
bles into the unsparing torrent again 
and is lost. This continuous rapid of 
four miles is a grand, deeply impressive 
sight." 

Duluth's attractions as a summer 
resort have spread the city's fame far 
and wide within the past two years. 
With its delightful climate, where the 
mercury kindly limits its parade be- 
tween sixty and seventy-five degrees 
during the hottest days of summer ; 
with its cool evening breezes that 
bring invigorating sleep, its remarka- 
ble scenery of woodland, lake and 



DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE &■ ATLANTIC RAILWAY. 



hill ; with its eccentric water-courses 
and its abundant sport — especially 
for fishermen — the only wonder is 
that its fame should have been so 
tardy. The numerous small streams 
along the north shore furnish the best 
kind of trout fishing. The delicious 
lake whitefish need no praises here, 
and of late the fame of the planked 
whitefish, as that dish is served in the 
Spalding House, is co-extensive with 
all knowledge of good living. Feath- 
ered game is plentiful the year around, 
and all along the St. Louis River, as 
well as far back in the tangled wild- 
wood, deer are still found in great 
numbers, in spite of the advancing 
sound of the woodman's axe and the 
ravages of the sportsman's rifle. 

Duluth's hotel accommodations are 
not excelled by those of any city of 
its size in the world. I will not speak 
of the position of Duluth from a 
commercial standpoint nor discuss the 
claims of its citizens, supported by 
abundant figures and logic, as to its 
ultimate supremacy in the commerce 
of the Northwest, but will leave it, 
confident that it will not cease to 
make its merits known and felt, while 
the reader starts for the tour that has 
been promised. 

Leaving the Union Depot by the 
Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic 
Railway, a short run across the bay 
brings us to WEST SUPERIOR, 
the "Younger Twin," as it has been 
nicknamed. This town, with " Old " 
Superior, stands upon the south shore 
of St. Louis Bay, with Superior Bay 
on the east. The Superiors appear 
to possess all the natural advantages 
it is possible to bestow upon a settle- 
ment as its birthright. With two riv- 
ers, three bays, a superb land-locked 
harbor seven miles in length, and a 
level, gently sloping site at the end 
of deep water navigation in the heart 
of the continent, what better can 
any youngster among our cities boast 
or want ? West, south and east lies 
a region watered by rivers and lakes 
teeming with fish of all kinds, from 
the "speckled beauties" to the thirty- 



pound salmon trout, while the forests 
remain plentifully supplied with deer. 
The Indian hunters and trappers de- 
rive a considerable income from the 
sale of the skins of many kinds of 
game. Many legends pertaining to 
the history of the Indians dwelling in 
this locality abound, and one that 1 
have read is uncommonly interesting. 
It appears that the Chippewas im- 
agined the home of the Bad Manitouto 
be at the gateway to Superior Bay. 
Because the currents of the bay and 
of the lake conflict just there and 
keep the water constantly, though not 
violently disturbed, they fancied that 
the evil spirit kept house in or under 
the water just at that spot. They 
knew he made trouble everywhere, 
and the unexplained disturbance in the 
water was therefore a certain sign that 
this was where he lived. In order to 
satisfy the demon they never passed 
that spot in their boats without drop- 
ping their valuables into it as a peace 
offering. By their valuables, I mean 
tobacco, pipes and whatever edible 
delicacies they had. How they 
expected the Old Harry to smoke 
soaking wet tobacco I don't know, 
but he evidently was not the same 
chap that we are familiar with, who 
has positively no liking for water at all. 
Besides our Bad Manitou rather 
helps those who want to go to Canada. 
At all events, when the Chippe- 
was felt too poor to bribe the Evil 
One, they used to swindle him by 
carrying their boats over a portage at 
a narrow strip of land that confines 
one side of the bay. I suspect he was 
the grand-father of our Davy Jones, 
whom all the sailors fear, because the 
real genuine proprietor of Hades cer- 
tainly always spent most of his time 
ashore — and does now. 

the lovely climate. 

The climate, not only here but 
throughout the entire region we are 
about to tra\erse, is most delightful. 
Summer does not linger in the lap of 
spring; in fact, in this realm of uncon- 
taminated nature. Miss Summer 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



13 



knows no such dubious practices. In- 
stead, she bounds away from cross 
and chilly old Winter, and with a sud- 
denness that is surprising, and a love- 
liness that is indescribable, she shakes 
out her green tresses and decks herself 
with flowers so as to more than make 
amends for the length the world has 
endured the season of snow and ice. 
Nowhere, unless it be in England, is 
the summer so luxuriant and opulent 
as here. The air, too, is not only soft 
and balmy, but it is spiced with the 
tonic of the woods. Here twilight 
lasts in summer until ten o'clock, with 
soft luminous tints along the northern 
horizon, beautiful beyond description, 
but exercising a bothersome influence 
upon children from the east who can 
never be persuaded that it is bed-time 
until the hours have gone more than 
half-way toward midnight. 

South of us, within two hours' drive, 
are the falls of the Black River, the 
Minnehaha of Wisconsin, one hundred 
and fifty feet or more in height, and 
just east of Superior Station we cross 
the Nemadji River, a deep stream that 
flows into Superior Bay. The name 
was given by the Chippewas and sig- 
nifies " left hand," meaning the river 
at the left hand as one enters the bay 
from the lake. Then continuing east- 
ward, we come upon three famous 
trout streams, the American, Poplar 
and Middle Rivers. At Brule is 
crossed the river of that name — a 
French word applied to woodland that 
has been burned over. The Brule is 
not large but it is picturesque, restful 
and famous as the best trouting stream 
in Wisconsin. This little river offers 
fine trout fishing for a distance of one 
hundred and fifty miles, but a noted 
St. Louis sportsman has pre-empted 
twenty miles of it — as well as he 
can — since he has a preserve of that 
extent with the river roaring through 
the centre of it. The country in 
this section is undulating and densely 
wooded, but through the thick foliage 
we catch many glimpses of deep ra- 
vines, quiet dells and trickling brook- 
lets. 



We have ridden forty-four miles 
from Duluth where we meet with the 
Iron River, another famous fishing 
stream, and presently we skirt the 
shores of Pike Lake, and cross 
Pike River. At Mason, the junction 
with the Chicago, St. Paul, Minne- 
apolis & Omaha Railway, it is desir- 
able to take a short trip to Ashland, 
on Chequamegon Bay. Ashland is a 
typical little city, as bustling as if it 
had twice its population of 20,000 
souls. Its splendid natural harbor is 
all but entirely land-locked, and is 
about seventeen miles long by seven 
wide. '* The shores are extremely 
picturesque, being varied by a series 
of bold, jutting promontories, capped 
by lofty trees. In many places the 
banks are cut into curious and fantas- 
tic forms by the action of the water 
which has fashioned them into caves, 
pillars and arches." 

At Ashland several railroads centre, 
and you see by the mills along the 
shore and the great fleets of logs the 
tugs are forever towing down the bay, 
that there is plenty of material for 
prosperity here. From the verandas 
of the Hotel Chequamegon, magnifi- 
cent views of forest and water 
may be obtained. Delightful and well 
kept grounds add to the natural attrac- 
tions of the place, which offers 
active pleasures in abundance. If 
one wants a sail or a row on the bay 
he will find any number of boats of 
all degrees of capacity and stylishness 
at the piers. There are boys there, 
too, to furnish that *' stiff ash breeze " 
which the old sailor once said a row- 
boat has to have. Or he can join 
some of the excursions going to Bay- 
field or out among the Apostle Islands 
on the natty little steamers that come 
and go at all hours of the day. 

Apostle Islands ! How the name 
brings back thoughts of the mission- 
ary pioneers. Father Marquette him- 
self, "the central figure of the lake- 
country history " spent some time 
here on Madeline Island, one of the 
twenty-four which form a lovely ar- 
chipelago in beautiful contrast with 



14 DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE &- ATLANTIC RAILWAY. 



the stern coast to the north and east. 
An antiquated Roman Catholic chapel 
still stands at La Pointe. It was built 
of rough hewn logs, and is now used 
as an adjunct of the newer structure. 
The chief object of interest in the 
room is a famous old picture that 
hangs over the altar, and that is only 
interesting because of a tradition to 
the effect that it was brought from 
France by the adventurous priests, 
whose zeal led them to this wild region. 
Some judges who fancy themselves 
competent, have pronounced it a pro- 
duct of some "old master," but it is 
more reasonable to 
suppose that it has ,„ ''ii'f''.'''^!'k:„H ,.^- . ^^ 



v-,('.'i 



.A*#* 



^N^#J-. 



At Saxon, the junction with the Mil- 
waukee, Lake Shore & Western Rail- 
way, prepare to bid adieu to Wisconsin,, 
for it is the last stopping-place we will 
" make," as both sailors and railroad 
men say in that picturesque State. For 
nearly one hundred miles we have been 
riding across its northern portion. 

I cannot testify to the following 
compliment to that region of scenic 
wonders; it is the product of a braver 
man's pan: "The northwestern quarter 
of Wisconsin has, from time immemo- 
rial, been the modest recipient of more 
flattery from explorers, hunters, tourists 
and health-seek- 

'^-^^S:. „ ^T,v . ers than any 

h!§f:-^ V. Other part of the 
delightful North- 




iAD-iJVER-iRlDCiE--" '^ 

no merit unless it has procured it as 
wine does, through age. Numberless 
pleasant little excursions to interesting 
and picturesque points may be taken 
from Ashland, above all a visit to the 
falls of the Bad River. 

ADIEU ! LOVELY WISCONSIN. 

Returning to Mason we continue 
eastward on the main line of the Du- 
LUTH, South Shore & Atlantic 
Railway in its elegant and comfort- 
able cars, and upon its level and solid 
road-bed. At a distance of a mile is 
crossed the Bad River, here coursing 
through a deep ravine bordered by 
dense woods. We look down rather 
dizzily at the madcap stream, for the 
bridge is sixty feet above the water, 
but two miles farther east Vaughan's 
Creek is spanned at a height of seventy- 
five feet. 



west. In the legends of the ' first 
families ' (the native Indians), in the 
traditions of the now departed pio- 
neers, in the camp-fire stories of the 
professional trappers and fishermen, in 
the ingenious fancies of newspaper men 
and in the more reliable (and often 
tiresome) reports of government inves- 
tigators, such as David Dale Owen 
and others, the palm of superiority 
has been accorded this mystic region 
for its diversified beauty, its charming 
lakes, stately forests, crystal streams, 
towering rocks, mysterious caverns, 
spray-wreathed cascades, fairy dells 
and shadowy grottoes ; for the beauty 
and healthfulness of its climate, for 
the variety and excellence of fish and 
game — in short, for everything that 
attracts and charms the lover of the 
beautiful in Nature." 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



15 



Ten miles east of Saxon, where we 
cross the Montreal River, we find our- 
selves in Michigan, and candor wrests 
from me the assurance that, in spite of 
the above eulogy, Nature has put no 
stamp upon Michigan that makes it 
differ from its no lovelier neighbor. 
We touch the soil of Michigan at 
Montreal and then, five miles farther 
on, alight at North Bessemer and take 
a stage for a two-mile drive to Besse- 
mer, in the heart of the Gogebic Iron 
Range. Here, you will agree with me, 
the poet and the pedant are likely to 
find food for more than has ever been 
or ever will be said of Wisconsin. In- 
deed, I will contribute to the volume 
myself, for here we enter that won- 
drous Lake Superior mineral region, the 
output from which has developed, in 
a few years, to prodigious proportions. 
For one hundred and fifty miles 
eastward we traverse a territory that is 
estimated to be more wealthy than any 
other section of this great Union. It is 
the Nation's treasure chest, brimful — 
and I had almost said," wide open." In 
truth it soon will be. Gold has been 
found and mines are being worked for 
ores richer than were ever known in 
California. Leads of silver have been 
traced, the copper production reaches 
millions annually, while in 1889, 
6,447,972 tons of iron ore were shipped 
from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

At Abitosse the western branch of 
the Black River is added to the list of 
streams we have seen in this wonder- 
fully watered region, and in five miles 
Thomaston, the headquarters of the 
Western Division of the Railway, is 
reached. 

We have been gradually climbing, 
climbing up into higher altitudes ever 
since we left Duluth, until at Thomas- 
ton, we have ascended seven hundred 
and fifty feet above Lake Superior. 
The country continues thickly clothed 
with forest, lumbering camps and cen- 
tres are noted along the line, and after 
a gradual descent we skirt the shores 
of Lake Gogebic. Close to the sta- 
tion of the same name good camping 
grounds are found, but a boat ride 



of fifteen miles brings a tourist to the 
Gogebic House and Cottages, where 
accommodations are afforded for more 
than one hundred guests. Gogebic 
Lake is universally conceded to fur- 
nish the best black bass fishing in the 
country. Its supremacy in this re- 
spect has been vouched for by veteran 
sportsmen who rank as best authorities 
from all parts of the United States. 
A half-dozen trout streams empty into 
the lake, and during early spring 
brook trout may be caught in its 
waters. They abound at all seasons 
in the tributary streams. There is a 
steam yacht under control of the hotel 
management, as well as a large fleet of 
sailing and fishing boats which can be 
obtained at reasonable rates, with or 
without guides. 

can there be purer air? 

Aside from its merits as a resort for 
sportsmen and the general tourist, the 
vicinity of the Gogebic Lake pos- 
sesses advantages as a sanitarium,, 
which have given it a well deserved 
and national reputation. Seven hun- 
dred feet above Lake Superior, and yet 
only twelve miles from that vast body 
of fresh water, the purity of the atmos- 
phere can be imagined by the reader 
— at a distance — can be tested by the 
tourist on the spot. Add to this the 
fact that the beautiful resort is in the 
heart of great pine and hard wood 
forests. Not only do they further purify 
the atmosphere, but they temper the 
air to a quality remarkably soft and 
salubrious. These are advantages 
such as are enjoyed by few other re- 
gions accessible by railway, no matter 
how much has been said in their be- 
half. The climatic consequences of 
the peculiar position of Gogebic Lake. 
are such as to recommend the region 
highly to all sufferers from pulmonary- 
ailments, and sufferers from hay fever 
or malaria will also find it especially 
curative. Hay fever is not only un- 
known here, but many afflicted with 
that complaint have been entirely cured 
within twenty-four to forty-eight hours 
after their arrival at Gogebic Lake. 



^LOXG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



17 



Judge Banta writes of Gogebic Lake 
in the January (1889) American 
Angler: "When I reached my goal 
I was not sorry that I had made the 
journey. Gogebic Lake has been too 
often written about in the sportsmen's 
papers for me to consume time and 
space in any description of it in this 
place. It is enough to say that the 
new line of the Duluth, South 
Shore & Atlantic Railway skirts 
the shore along the north end for a 
distance of four miles. I went to the 
Gogebic for the purpose of spending 



made me forget the purpose of my 
coming ! " 

After skirting the lake shore for 
four miles with this imaginary party 
of tourists in my charge (tourists who 
never ask foolish questions, by the 
way) we cross the Gogebic River and 
hurry forward through a forest coun- 
try, unbroken except by the openings 
made here and there by the axe of the 
homesteader or woodman. Where 
mills have been established, fair hotel 
accommodations may be obtained, 
but the country is rugged and wild. 




my time fishing, but somehow 1 
changed my mind after I got there. 
I saw many persons go out upon the 
beautiful Gogebic waters, and it 
seemed so easy for them to hook and 
haul in the bass that my desire to 
emulate them eluded me. It was so 
much pleasanter to sit in the door of 
the tent and look at the lake. Can I 
ever forget the dreamy freshness of 
those days on Gogebic Lake ? The 
green woods, the clear waters, the 
crisp balsam-laden breeze, how charm- 
ing they were and how surely they 



At EwEN we shoot out upon a bridge 
nearly one hundred feet above a 
beautiful stream and seem poised, as 
a swallow, in mid-air. The stream is 
the Ontonagon River. The spray 
from the falls glistens like diamonds 
in the sunlight, and the watery veil 
screens, as with a web of open lace, 
the features of the rocky ledge behind 
it. It is worthy anyone's leisure 
to stop here and get the views of this 
cataract that are obtainable. It is 
toilsome work to get io the bottom 
of the falls, but from there is gotten 



[8 DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE 6f ATLANTIC RAILWAY. 



the best view of them. The railroad 
bridge you have left above you has 
become a mere thread in the air. 
Looking down the stream you see the 
falls in all their majesty and beauty. 

A sportsman's paradise. 

A writer mentioned previously thus 
describes some of his experiences in 
this sportsman's paradise in a later 
number of the A ng-/er: " I had man- 
aged to pass over the entire ninety 
miles between Gogebic and Nestoria 
by daylight, and had thus been enabled 
to get a view of the country. I had 
seen but little game, but from what 
I heard, and especially from the signs 
seen, I knew that I was in a country 
abounding in both deer and bear. 

" But it was not game that I was 
after. It was trout, and I think I 
have written enough to show that 




■u,»V^/. s /.i\ /. s /.», /A /.\ /.\ /.\ /l\ ,A/»^ ./ V 




in a space of little over twenty miles, 
I had found a region that would sat- 
isfy the most exacting. I think it 
quite likely that if I could keep the 
location of this region secret I would 
do so, but as a railroad runs through it 
that cannot be done, so I fling the 
news broadcast. 

" I fished four streams within the 
twenty-two miles, between the middle 
branch of the Ontonagon and Perch 
River, and I think I got all of any 
consequence the road crosses; but I 
heard of other streams, both to the 
north and south of the road and ac- 
cessible from it, where trout fishing is 
said to be equally as good as in the 
streams I tested. 

" The country is a wilderness, and 
will be to all intents and purposes for 
a few years yet. It is an uneven 
country, its surface being cut up by 
small streams and occasional swamps. 
It is a country of thick 
forests, and dense thickets 
frequently occur. But the 
camping ground is good. 
On the Middle Branch, on 
Spring Creek, on the East 
Branch, on Perch River, 
are excellent camp sites, 
with good water close at 

At SiDNAW (for- 
merly Hill Creek) 
connection is made 
with the Ontonagon 
Division of the Mil- 
waukee & Northern 
R.R leading to the 
city for which this 
section of the 
road was named. 
Onto nagon is 
the oldest city on 
Lake Superior, 



QNTONACON- FALLS 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



19 



but until within a year possessed no 
rail communication with the world at 
large. In the Chippewa tongue nogon 
signifies cup or dish. The word was 
common to all the Algonquin tribes 
in one form or another, and was used 
by them to mean a cup or bowl, also 
the head, because of the bowl-like 
shape of the skull. 

A short distance east of Sidnaw we 
cross the Perch River, which flows 
fifty feet below. We are now eight 
hundred feet above Lake Superior, 
and at Nestoria, ten miles farther, 
the elevation reaches 1050 feet. This 
is the highest station on the main 
line. Again we make a digression, 
taking the branch line to Houghton. 
The train climbs higher and 
higher until at Summit Sta- 
tion we reach an altitud( ■^ 
1 1 70 feet above Lake 
Superior and nearly 
1800 above tide 
water, having 
crossed the Stur- 
geon River nine 
times during the 
ascent. The de- 
scent from this ^^^ 
point is rapid, the ^ 
grade in some parts ^ 
being one hundred 
and seventy feet to 
the mile, and at 
L'Anse ten miles 
north, at the head 
of Keweenaw Bay, 
we are only one 
hundred feet above 
the Lake, having 
bridged the Fall 
River eleven times. 
L'Anse is on the 
site of a Jesuit mis- 
sion, and is now a 
lumber centre, but 
Baraga five miles 
farther bids fair to 
rival it in this 
branch of com- 
merce. M any 
lovely drives may 
be taken in this 



section along the shores of the bay 
and through the forests bordering the 
streams. Between Baraga and Hough- 
ton we cross many streams, in all of 
which trout are plentiful, while pick- 
erel, wall-eyed pike and perch may 
be found in the deep and sluggish 
ponds or lakes. 

The Otto River, reached conven- 
iently from Houghton, is the only 
stream in the Upper Peninsula of 
Michigan in which grayling — genuine 
Thymallus tricolor — are found. A 
writer in Outing says *' that a vis- 
itor from a lower latitude will be im- 
pressed with the silence he finds 
reigning amid these deep woods." 
Doubtless, he will see abundant evi- 
dences of the 



presence of 
animal life, 




]^LL6.'-' 

• Nee\p LAr\5e 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



but it is a life hiding in the shadows. 
Even the birds are songless and when 
surprised, as they often are, flit noise- 
lessly out of view. But along the val- 
leys of the streams where the sunlight 
comes in, and all the conditions are 
favorable to the sustaining of animal 
life, one may expect to find it abound- 
ing. It was so along the valley of the 
Otter. 

" This green and sun-streaked glade was rife 
With sights and sounds of forest life." 

" What a covert for wild beasts the 
brushy thickets near the stream and 
the dark woods beyond did present. 
Side by side in moist places were to 
be seen the tracks of the deer, and of 
their mortal enemies, the gray wolves. 
Twice we heard the '' long drawn howl' 
of the night prowlers, and one day 
as I stooped to drink at a spring, while 
wandering in the forest, I noticed in 
the soft earth beneath me the foot- 
print of Lupus. He had lajDped there 
not many hours before. Two or three 
places we saw where bruin had left 
the print of his moccasin, but neither 
wolf nor bear gladdened our sight the 
voyage through. One deer, and one 
only we saw, and that was one evening 
as the shadows were dropping down, 
when one carelessly ran bang up 
against our camping ground." 

Houghton and Hancock, "the 
Twin Cities of the Gitchie Gummee," 
are located on opposite sides of Port- 
age Lake, which separates Keweenaw 
Point from the mainland. The chan- 
nel of Portage Lake is deep enough 
to admit the passage of the largest ves- 
sels ; and as these cities are in the 
heart of the greatest copper region in 



the world, they are the ports from 
which that product is shipped. " Ke- 
weenaw " signifies a portage, and this 
copper arm has a history, for which 
credit should be given to Picturesque 
America, wherein I read it. 

" Centuries ago," reads the tale, " its 
hills were mined, and the first white 
explorers found the ancient works and 
tools, and wondered over them ; when 
they were tired of wondering they 
ascribed them to the extinct Mound- 
builders, whoever they were, a most 
convenient race, who come in for all 
the riddles of the western country, 
and never rise from their graves to 
say to us, ' No.' The Chippewas 
of Superior were full of supersti- 
tious fear regarding Keweenaw Point ; 
they believed that a demon resided 
there, and they dared not visit his 
domain to procure copper without first 
propitiating him with rites and gifts ; 
then trembling and in silence, they 
lighted fires around some exposed 
mass of the metal, and, when it was 
softened, they hastily cut off a small 
quantity and fled to their canoes with- 
out looking back. So strong was their 
dread that for years the explorers were 
unable to obtain from them informa- 
tion about the Point, neither would 
they act as guides, although tempting 
bribes were offered. Then came the 
geologists, unwilling to believe that 
native copper existed in such a locality, 
but forced to concede the fact when 
solid masses of five hundred tons con- 
fronted them. Gradually they found 
that this long point held the greatest 
copper mines in the world, those of 
the Ural Mountains in Russia sinking 



-fifi^^T^'*-' 







DULUTH. SOUTH SHORE &f ATLANTIC RAHAVAY. 



into insignificance in comparison with 
them ; and upon this discovery spec- 
ulation started up, and fortunes were 
made and lost in the eastern cities in 
copper stock by men who barely knew 



only does it supply the whole country 
but its wealth is even sent across the 
ocean to aid the old world. On 
Keweenaw are several lakes, among 
them the lovely Lac-la-Belle of the 




where Keweenaw was, as they tossed 
it like a football from one to another, 
and jabbered off its Indian name with 
easy fluency. Throughout this excite- 
ment and after it died away, however, 
the Point kept steadily producing its 
copper from the hills until now not 



voyageuj's, and the north shore of the 
Point is bold with beautiful rock 
harbors." 

No industry in the Lake Superior 
region yields such returns for the 
money invested as do the copper 
mines. 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



23 



A CITY UNDER THE GROUND. 

In nearly all other mines copper is 
found as an ore in the form of red 
oxide or of sulphide of iron, as yellow 
copper ore, also called copper pyrites. 
These ores need to be reduced by a 
complex and highly expensive process. 
On Keweenaw the native copper is 
sometimes found in masses, but more 
frequently it takes the form of con- 
glomerates, that is, native copper 
mixed with rock. As there is no re- 
ducing of ore the cost of producing 
commercial copper from this is much 
less here than elsewhere. Through 
that part of Keweenaw Point in which 
the Calumet and Hecla mine is located, 
there runs a system of rocks known 
to geologists as the " copper-bearing 
series " but which the miners call the 
" Copper Mineral Range." It is a 
conglomerate rock, varying from ten 
to fifteen feet in thickness, reaching 
to an unknown depth into the earth 
and streaked and veined for more 
than a mile of its length with metallic 
copper, pure enough to be stamped 
into pennies. At this mine a depth of 
3000 feet, measuring on a slope of 
forty degrees, has been reached. The 
great compound engine of 3000 horse- 
power (the largest in the world, and 
strong enough to turn the two Corliss 
engines of the Centennial Exposition 
backward, and to do their work in 
addition) is capable of supplying 
power until a depth of 4000 feet has 
been reached. 

The mine itself resembles a section 
of a rectangular city and has eight 
parallel main avenues, each with its 
railroad, reaching nearly a mile into 
the earth, and intersected by about 
thirty horizontal streets a mile in 
length. ., It has no parallel in the his- 
tory of mining enterprises, and has 
built up a vast industry employing 
more than 3000 men, and supporting 
two flourishing villages with a popula- 
tion of more than 10,000. 

Douglas Falls, near Houghton, 
resemble, in miniature, the celebrated 
Bridal Veil Falls of the Yosemite 



Valley ; and, by the way, the Douglas 
House at Houghton, and the North- 
western Hotel at Hancock, are both 
excellent hostelries. 

ALONG THE MARQUETTE RANGE. 

From Nestoria the main line trav- 
erses the opulent iron-mining section 
known as the Marquette Range. For 
a long distance we follow Lake Michi- 
gamme, a beautiful sheet, seven miles- 
long by three miles wide. It is dotted 
with many picturesque islands, and its 
wooded shores are abrupt and rugged 
in outline. Stopping a moment at 
Michigamme, which boasts one of the 
best kept and most comfortable hotels 
in the Upper Peninsula, a run of seven 
miles brings us to Champion, the junc- 
tion with the main line of the Mil- 
waukee & Northern Railroad, with 
which we can connect for Milwaukee, 
Chicago and intermediate points. At 
Humboldt a branch leads to Repub- 
lic and the mine of the same name. 
Ten miles beyond we reach Ishpem- 
ING, the largest city in the Marquette 
Range, with a population of about 
15,000. Many delightful drives may be 
taken in this vicinity. The roads are 
hard and smooth, having been built by 
the mining companies for hauling ore, 
and no less than nine lakes and ponds 
may be visited within a radius of a 
dozen miles. Negaunee, three miles 
farther east, has a population of 10,- 
000, the mining industry supplying 
employment to large numbers. Here 
connection is made with the Chicago 
& Northwestern Railway for Escanaba, 
Milwaukee and Chicago. Days could 
be profitably spent around Ishpeming 
and Negaunee in visiting the iron and 
gold mines, many of which are " open 
pit " mines in which the operations 
may be viewed from the mouth of the 
pit. If any reader has let his curiosity 
drag him into one of the other sort, 
with its dripping walls and pitfalls and 
smoking lamps, he will appreciate all 
the beauties of seeing mining without 
going into the earth's bowels to do it. 

Since leaving Nestoria the road has 
been gradually descending again. We 




/•-A 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



25 



get but a glance at Eagle Mills, a 
hustling, prosperous lumber town, and 
then we scamper on toward Mar- 
quette, the " Queen City of Lake 
Superior," and then we are at the 
water's level. Marquette is by all 
odds the best built, wealthiest and 
most beautiful city on the south shore 
of Lake Superior. Like the Biblical 
ideal, it is " set upon a hill," or, rather, 
on high ground, ensuring perfect 
drainage, and overlooking Iron Bay, 
a veritable American edition of the 
Bay of Naples, which runs in ten 
miles from the great lake. The streets 
are electric lighted, broad, well paved, 
and usually bordered with great slabs 
of serpentine marble or redstone, as 
bright and clean as the best boulevards 
in America. Its business blocks are 
fine, large and substantial. A new 
opera house block is now being con- 
structed at a cost of $75,000, giving 
the city the finest amusement hall east 
of Duluth and north of Milwaukee. 
The business portion of the town is 
in the "hollow," the residences on the 
circling hillsides. A correspondent 
of a New York evening paper says : 
^' I have never seen a more desirable 
place for a summer home than Ridge 
Street. It is laid out on a bluff, per- 
haps two hundred feet above the lake, 
shaded with double rows of young ma- 
ples, and lined with cottages of modern 
architecture, interspersed with solid 
stone mansions and square old-fash- 
ioned country seats. Fountains play 
on the lawns ; there are conservato- 
ries filled with rare flowers ; there are 
elegant interiors, and yet a mile away is 
the original wilderness, with bear, deer 
and the great northern wolf in undis- 
puted possession. The highest civiliza- 
tion is in strange juxtaposition with the 
fiercest wildness. The town has a high 
school, housed in alarge, well-appointed 
brownstone building, with primary, 
grammar and high school departments, 
efficiently conducted ; elegant stone 
churches, a musical association, two 
public libraries, several excellent hotels, 
and a ladies' literary club which circu- 
lates the latest books and magazines." 



What the correspondent really wrote 
was that the ladies circulate " the 
latest books and magazines and several 
excellent hotels." There is more in that 
than appears at first sight. I know 
several hotels whose owners would like 
to have them "circulate." But those 
hotels are not in Marquette. 

Marquette has 10,000 population, 
but if population bores you there re- 
main long walks into the forest, strolls 
by the lakeside, lovely rides and 
periodical excursions to the trout 
streams, magnificently stocked, which 
may be reached anywhere in the 
woods by a tramp of from two to ten 
miles. 

" Some forty-five years ago a party 
of surveyors running the west line of 
township 47, range 26, observed 
strange variations in the magnetic 
needle, and thereby discovered rich 
deposits of the richest hematite and 
magnetic ores. Capitalists from Cleve- 
land and elsewhere came in, opened 
the mines, built two railroads to Mar- 
quette, the nearest port,and began ship- 
ping the ore to Cleveland for smelt- 
ing." There are now seventy-three 
mines on the Marquette range which 
extends thirty miles inland. From forty 
of these mines 2,634,817 gross tons 
were shipped in 1889, while the output 
for 1890 promises to reach the enor- 
mous quantity of 4,000,000 tons. Four 
large ore docks, reaching out into the 
bay from 1000 to 1600 feet and forty- 
seven f«^et above the lake, have been 
constructed to facilitate the handling 
of this great traffic. These docks are 
the scene of intense activity day and 
night during the season of navigation. 
Ambitious little switching engines take 
the ore trains from the yards, whither 
they come from the mines, and push 
them out on the wharves. There 
red-shirted "trimmers" Warm on 
them, knock out the pins that hold 
the bottom of each car in place, and 
the twenty-ton loads drop into the 
' ' pocket " in the wharf. These pockets 
hold from ninety to one hundred and 
fifty tons. At the bottom of each 
pocket is a hinged chide or spout 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



n 



twenty feet long, which is lowered au- 
tomatically into the hold of a vessel 
wharfed alongside; simultaneously the 
door of the pocket rises and the red 
or blue ore is precipitated into the hold 
below„ Vessels of 3000 tons may thus 
be loaded in three hours. 

The drives from Marquette to Har- 
vey, four miles, to Mount Mesnard 
two and one-half miles, to CoUinsville 
four miles, and around Presque Isle, 
eight miles, are all delightful. 

Presque Isle is the name of a high 
headland two miles north of Mar- 
quette. It was deeded to the City by 



or their outlet, the St. Lawrence! 
And yet the water's purity seems 
greatest in Lake Superior. A tea- 
spoon lying on the bottom at a depth 
of twenty feet appears its own size ; 
it is in reality magnified, as at that dis- 
tance it would look smaller through 
the atmosphere. 

But for the improvements named 
Presque Isle is almost its primeval self 
as the Indian knew it. Its shores are 
rugged, sandstone cliffs, broken here 
and there by the waves into fancifully 



'{ i^^f^^TTE 



FUOM LIChT HOUSE Kclr- 




the Federal Government for a park, 
and is reached by a good macadam- 
ized road, built along the beach and 
encircling the point. In constructing 
these roads through the forests of 
noble trees with which the headland 
is covered, barely timber enough has 
been cut away to allow carriages to pass 
each other. On the warmest of sum- 
mer days one may drive there without 
being in the least annoyed by the sun's 
rays and without ever losing the grand 
view of the apparently limitless ex- 
panse of the deep blue Avaters of Su- 
perior. The water appears many 
shades darker than the azure of the 
sky, yet so transparent that one may 
detect the smallest objects in twenty 
feet of water. In this respect the 
famous crystallized water of Lake 
George is excelled. How wonderful 
it is that nothing sullies this enormous 
mass of fresh water in any of the lakes 



•vy_\"%>*S«.' 



formed caverns, pillars and arches., 
The strata are. nearly horizontal, and 
the veins of different colored minerals 
make a singularly striking appearance. 
It interested Agassiz immensely whea 
he visited it a few years before his 
death. 

This spot was once the site of a 
flourishing Indian village of the Chip- 
pewa tribe, and as these Chippewas 
were far removed from their enemies 
the Dakotas, many of the young 
braves had never drawn bow or toma- 
hawk in combat. On this account 
they were tantalized and called squaws 
by their brethren on the frontier. 
After enduring this a long time a war 
party was organized to wash away 
with blood, these imputations of cow- 
ardice. Before setting out in search 
of their enemies, the party, thirteen 
in number, appointed a young man as- 
runner to accompany them, watch the 



DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE 6f ATLANTIC RAILWAY. 



result, and in the event of their de- 
struction, to hasten back with the tid- 
ings. They soon fell in with an enemy 
four times their number. Selecting 
their ground and directing the runner 
to take a position from which he could 
see the battle, they made their onset. 
They killed twice their own number 
and then retreated to a place of en- 
trenchment. Enraged at the loss, the 
enemy pursued, fell upon, and amidst 
great carnage, slew them all. The 
young Indian runner was seen by 
Governor Cass soon after his return, 
and the Governor listened with much 
interest as he recounted the inci- 
dents of the thrilling adventure and 
chanted tiis requiem 
song in eulogy of the 
\- , fallen. 



" Would that Dead River bore a 
name less grim, for some of my pleas- 
antest outings have been upon its 
bank." So writes a friend of the 
author. " One day my friend Phil, 
invited me out trout fishing on its 
head waters. Our outfit comprised 
two lance-wood poles with reels, half 
a dozen extra hooks for each, earth- 
worms for bait, a preparation of tar, 
carbolic acid and sweet oil for smear- 
ing the face as a sap to the mosqui- 
toes, a basket for the "catch," stout, 
hob-nailed shoes, and the oldest suit 
of clothes our wardrobes could furnish. 
After a ride of four miles through the 
pine and poplar forest, we tied our 
horses to the -; 
fence of a farm 




m P"C5ei£j?l'-- 



.3° 



DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE &f A TZ ANTIC RAIL WAV. 



on a bluff overlooking the stream. 
Here we had a pretty woodland scene. 
The river valley for a mile had been 
cleared and was green with clover 
and wheat fields, while on the bluffs, 
on either side, the primeval forest 
still stood gaunt and sombre. We 
passed up the right bank, and at last 
where the river impinged sharply on 
bold bluffs, we climbed the elevation 
and struck into the dense forest. A 
perfect tangle it was. Footprints of 
deer were as common here and in the 
open as sheep tracks in a New Eng- 
land pasture, and now and then a broad 
trail through the reeds marked the 
recent passage of a bear. We were 
crossing a deep ravine by a fallen tree, 
and below was as dense a thicket as 
eye ever peered into. Out of this as 
we crossed came a deep growl, a per- 
fect symbol of ferocity. We agreed 
that we had no call to explore that 
thicket, and pushed on, coming out 
on the river perhaps half a mile above. 
The roar of the water-fall sounded 
deep in the forest, and the water 
flowed swiftly though it was easily 
fordable. Here we rested, watching 
the gurgling water and anon casting a 
sprig into the stream to watch its 
bright verdure form a fitting wreath 
to the lily-like foam as they together 
floated rapidly down the amber-hued 
stream. 

" Presently we began fishing. The 
method is to wade down stream in 
water reaching from your knees to 
your waist, cast, and let your hook 
run down with the stream. Phil, 
crossed over and took the opposite 
bank. Presently I hear a splash on 
his side, his reel whirrs, then he winds 
in, and in due time slips a pound trout 
in his basket. The next is mine, then 
he strikes and loses one. So we go 
down stream meeting with varied 
luck, until when near the clearing, we 
compare baskets, and find that Phil, 
has ten fish and I twenty. This was 
explainable, as Phil, had broken his 
rod and left four hooks to beautify 
the branches of the trees near the 
bank." 



The new electric lighting power 
dam near the CoUinsville mill, which 
the City Fathers of Marquette have 
constructed, is a typical example of 
the enterprise which in this part of 
the West leads much smaller places to 
have "whatever's going," be it elec- 
tricity or La Grippe. Marquette has 
purchased the power privileges and 
put up a dam at an expense of $30,000, 
and thus obtains the power for the 
electric lighting system put in opera- 
tion during the past year. The Col- 
linsville mill, now fast falling into 
decay, is said to be the oldest iron 
furnace in the State, and stands on 
one of the most picturesque spots of 
the many that beautify Dead River. 

From Mount Mesnard we have an 
extended view of the lake and sur- 
rounding territory. Immediately be- 
low and to the north lies the city, its 
streets terraced one above another on 
the rising hillsides. Iron Bay sweeps 
its ten-mile circle to the very base of 
the Mount. Farther north Presque 
Isle stands out in j^icturesque bold- 
ness, and beyond, the "Gitchie 
Gumme" extends until the deep blue 
of its waters is lost in the opalescent 
paleness of the horizon. East, south 
and west hill, valley and silvery 
stream glorify the entrancing scene. 

" Down on the wharf are two small 
frame buildings, beside which are 
huge reels on which nets are wound. 
The interiors of the buildings, laden 
with nets and hooks and lines, tarred 
rope, barrels of salt, ice boxes, oars, 
boats and barrels of salted fish send 
forth a fishy and tarry odor quite de- 
lightful to the landsman. Every 
afternoon at about four o'clock two 
busy little tugs come fuming and 
puffing up the harbor and are made 
fast abreast these fish-houses. The 
forward hatch is thrown off, and the 
" catch " of the morning is displayed, 
hundreds of gleaming whitefish, long 
piratical-looking lake trout, silvery 
herring, and now and then a stur- 
geon just to remind us that we are in 
Hiawatha's land. The Lake Supe- 
rior whitefish are perhaps the most 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



31 



delicious scaled creatures known to 
the epicure. They are caught weigh- 
ing from three to thirty pounds. The 
extent of the catch may be computed 
from the fact that one firm in Mar- 
quette shipped last summer more than 
a hundred tons of fresh fish, yet the 
supply does not seem to diminish." 

I am glad to be able to give an ac- 
count of a day on one of these tugs 
by a clever and observing writer. All 
who love the water will enjoy it ; 
and yet the information it con 
tains is its more notable feature 

" The tug left between 
dawn and sunrise. The 
east was all aglow, and 
the west dark by 
contrast as we put 
out into the lake 
There wa« 



unconstrained and con- 
fidential. Wonderful 
lore of the lake we 
pick up here on / 
the water from /' 
the sailors 
and fish- 




"^Thi-s father 
'■^ of lakes, we 
learn, has his 
tides, pulsations and heart-beats. 
We ourselves observe in our 
evening walks along 
the curving 
''f^\ beach that 






twenty-mile 
run to be 
made before 
reaching 
the first 
'pound' to 
be ' lifted,' 
and we 
found a 
warm cor- 
ner in the 
pilot-house, 

and with a cigar inveigled the skipper 
into a chat that in time became 



the waters have sometimes risen, 
sometimes receded. There are three 
regular movements of the water, old 
watermen say, a daily rise and fall, an 
annual, and a cyclical, the latter oc- 
curring about once in twenty years. 



DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE & ATLANTIC RAILWAY. 



In early winter the lake is covered 
with fogs, and the constant evapora- 
tion so drains its waters that they are 
much lower in spring than in autumn, 
but when the snow melts and the 
rivers pour in their floods, the water 
rises, attaining the maximum about 
the 25th of June. Then there is a 
constant and permanent recession of 
the waters, insomuch that in time 
much that is now covered by the lake 
will be drv land. In the plain between 
Marquette and the lake on the norths 
may be seen several distinct ridges, 
now far inland, which once formed the 
shores of the lake. The coldness of 
the lacustrine waters we learn is 
another phenomenon. In winter the 
mean temperature of Lake Superior is 
thirty-six degrees, in summer forty, a 
difference of only four degrees. This 
water, too, is chemically pure, so that 
all the good people of Marquette had 
to do to get pure city water was to run 
a crib out into the lake and pump the 
water into the reservoir. 

'* By and by the boat approaches 
the first pound. The square enclosure 
forming the pound is set in deep water, 
and a Hne of netting leads from the 
shore or shoal water out to it. The 
men taking the small skiff row inside 
the pound and proceed to lift the net. 
The water foams and boils as the latter 
approaches the surface and dark backs 
and fins and gleaming sides flash in the 
foam. The net is pursed, then lifted 
bodily, and the contents — a fine as- 
sortment of lake beauties — trout, 
whitefish, muskallonge, suckers and a 
sturgeon, are emptied into the boat. 
As we bowl along to the next pound, 
the skipper is led to descant on the 
habits and characteristics of the lake 
fish." 

" The chief food fish of the lakes, 
both in quantity and quality is the 
whitefish. 

" He has his preferences and idio- 
syncrasies which the fishermen, to en- 
snare him successfully, must carefully 
study. His food is chiefly snails, slugs 
and limpets attached to the rocks, so 
that a rocky bottom, is his chosen 



haunt. In the spring and summer 
months he retires to deep water and is 
found several miles from shore. In 
the fall he comes in close to land and 
the nets are often spread from the 
rocks. The long slender fork-tailed 
trout is the pirate of these waters. 
What the shark is to the sea he is to 
the lake, voracious and ferocious. He 
will eat anything. The fishermen 
found in one a pebble as big as a man's 
fist, in another an old hat. A full 
grown lake trout may weigh sixty 
pounds, and will attack anything but a 
sturgeon. Trolling for them is a 
favorite amusement. The muskallonge 
looks like an immense pike. His 
food is also smaller fish, and he is also 
caught with the trolling-spoon. The 
sturgeon now is his opposite; gets his 
food by suction like a catfish. His 
skin is black and smooth, scaleless as 
an eel's. A great deal of the cod-liver 
oil of to-day comes from the livers of 
the sturgeon." 

For several miles after leaving Mar- 
quette, in the train that my silent 
band of tourists is taking, we circle 
the shore of the bay and lake. Across 
the flashing waves the city stands out 
in bold relief, its handsome residences, 
massive public buildings, docks and 
manufactories, so indicative of wealth 
and prosperity, forming a fine picture. 
Within a few miles we cross the Carp 
and Chocolay rivers — both well stocked 
with trout. At Deerton, twenty 
miles from Marquette, the Whitefish 
or Sable River is met. Three miles 
south is Whitefish Lake, well stocked 
with speckled trout and black bass. 

THE HAUNTS OF GAME FISH. 

On our left, just after passing Onota 
Station we pass Deer Lake, a beautiful 
woodland mirror about a mile long and 
a quarter as wide. Lying hidden amid 
dense hard wood forests, at the base 
of rugged hills, it has naturally become 
a favorite camping ground. Black 
bass and muskallonge are abundant. 
A climb to the summit of the hills on 
its northern shore rewards you with a 
magnificent view of Lake Superior 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



33 



which is only about a quarter of a 
mile away. Boats, bait, guides and 
teams may be obtained here, while 
deer, bear and small game are abun- 
dant. Rock River deserves mention as 
a trout stream, but our next stop is at 
Au Train. Two miles from the 
station, "across country" is Au Train 
Lake, but to have followed the stream 
which leads past the station would have 
involved a journey of several miles be- 
cause of its devious windings. This 
liquid serpent, emptying into the lake 



igan. The ride to Munising Bay 
over a smooth road, under the arch- 
ing branches of a hard wood forest, 
forming a lovely bower whose foliage 
the sun fails to penetrate, is most de- 
lightful. The town of Old Munising 
is situated on the eastern shore of the 
bay. The ruins of an old iron fur- 
nace tell of the unfulfilled hopes of 
its early citizens. At Powell's Point, 
opposite, a large hotel is being con- 
structed, while a rival establishment 
occupies the adjacent point on Grand 




LiCrlTnouSE 



at its head, runs from a range of hills 
several miles southward and descends 
in a succession of beautiful cascades, 
favorite haunts of trout. Game 
abounds, and at the hotel a few rods 
from the station, teams, guides and 
supplies of all kinds may be obtained, 
while among the pine groves on the 
rising land near river and lake good 
camping grounds will be found. 

A run of thirteen miles brings us 
to Munising, where we take a stage 
for the four miles to Munising Bay. 
Sixteen-Mile Lake lies nine miles 
to the southwest from the station, and 
Long Lake two miles southeast. 
Both are famous for black bass, large 
perch, and trout. They are the first 
of a chain of lakes and stream whose 
waters flow southward into Lake Mich- 

3 



Island. No stop along the south 
shore of Lake Superior is more en- 
chanting than Munising Bay. It is 
land-locked, high hills encircle it, and 
beyond the mouth of the bay lies 
Grand Island, in itself romantically 
beautiful, although almost unnoticed 
in this long succession of marvels that 
is to make Superior's south shore the 
Mecca of pleasure seekers. 

The Pictured Rocks. Constance 
Fenimore Woolson has written that 
" the pictured rocks stretch from 
Munising Harbor eastward along the 
coast, rising in some places to the 
height of two hundred feet from the 
water, in sheer precipices, without 
beach at their bases. They show a 
constant succession of rock-sculptures, 
and the effect is heightened by the 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



35 



iDrilliancy of the coloring — yellow, 
blue, green and gray,. in all shades of 
dark and light, alternating with each 
other in a manner which charms the 
traveler, and so astonishes the sober 
geologist that his dull pages blossom 
as the rose. It is impossible to enu- 
merate all the rock-pictures, for they 
succeed each other in a bewildering 
series, varying from differing points 
of view and sweeping like a panorama, 
from curve to curve, mile after mile. 
They vary also, to various eyes, one 
person seeing a castle with towers, 
where another sees a caravan of the 
desert ; the near-sighted following the 
tracery of tropical foliage — the far- 
sighted pointing out a storied fortifi- 
cation with a banner flying from its 
summit. There are, however, a num- 
ber of the pictures so boldly drawn 
that all can see them near or far, even 
the most deadly-practical minds being 
forced to admit their reality. Passing 
the Chimney's and the Miners' Cas- 
tle, a detached mass called the Sail 
Rock, comes into view ; and so strik- 
ing is the resemblance to a sloop with 
the jib and mainsail spread, that, at a 
short distance out at sea, anyone 
would suppose it a real boat at anchor 
near the beach. Two headlands be- 
yond this, Le Grand Portal, so 
named by the voyageurs, a race now 
gone, whose unwritten history, hang- 
ing in fragments on the points of 
Lake Superior, and fast fading away, 
belongs to what will soon be the mys- 
tic days of the fur trade. The Grand 
Portal is one hundred feet high by 
one hundred and sixty-eight broad at 
the water-level ; and the cliff in which 
it is cut rises above the arch, making 
the whole height one hundred and 
eighty-five feet. The great cave whose 
door is the Portal, stretches back in 
the shape of a vaulted room, the arches 
of the roof built of yellow sandstone, 
and the sides fretted into fantastic 
shapes by the waves driving in during 
storms, and dashing up a hundred 
feet toward the reverberating roof 
with a hollow boom. Floating under 
the Portal, on a summer day, voices 



echo back and forth, a single word is 
repeated, and naturally the mind re- 
verts to the Indian belief in grotesque 
imps who haunted the cavern and 
played their pranks upon rash in- 
truders. 

" Farther toward the east is La 
Chapelle of the voyageiirs. This 
rock-chapel is forty feet above the 
lake, a temple with an arched roof of 
sandstone, resting partly on the cliff 
behind, and partly on massive columns, 
as perfect as the columned ruins of 
Eg}-pt. Within, the rocks form an 
altar and a pulpit; and the cliff in front 
is worn into rough steps upward from 
the water, so that all stands ready for 
the minister and his congregation. 
The colors of the rock are the fresco, 
mosses and lichens are the stained 
glass; and, from below, the continuous 
wash of the water in and out through 
holes in the sides, is like the low, open- 
ing swell of an organ voluntary. A 
Manitou dwelt in this chapel — not a 
mischievous imp, like the spirits of the 
Portal, but a grand god of the storm, 
who, with his fellow god on Thunder 
Cape of the north shore, commanded 
the winds and waves of the whole 
lake, from the Sault to Fond du 
Lac. On the chapel-beach the Indians 
performed their rites to appease him, 
and here, at a later day, the merry 
voyageiirs initiated the tyros of the 
fur trade into the mysteries of their 
craft, by plunging them into the water- 
fall that dashes over the rocks near by, 
a northern parody on * crossing-the- 
line.' 

"The Silver Cascade falls from 
an overhanging cliff one hundred and 
seventy-five feet into the lake below. 
The fall of Niagara is one hundred 
and sixty-five feet, ten feet less than 
the Silver, which, however, is but a 
ribbon in breadth, compared to the 
' ' Thunder of Waters." The Silver is a 
beautiful fall and the largest among 
the pictures; but the whole coast of 
Superior is spangled with the spray of 
innumerable cascades and rapids, as 
all the little rivers, instead of running 
through the gorges and ravines of the 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



37 



lower lake country, spring boldly over 
the cliffs, without waiting to make a 
bed for themselves. Undine would 
have loved their wild, sparkling waters. 
" The coast of pictures is not yet 
half explored, nor its beauties half dis- 
covered; they vary in the light and in 
the shade; they show one outline in 
the sunshine and another in the moon- 
light; battlements and arches, foliage 
and vines, cities with their spires and 
towers, processions of animals, and 
even the great sea serpent himself, who 
at last although still invisible in his 
own person, has given us a kind of 
rock-photograph of his mysterious 
self. In one place there stands a 



looks to the north, not sadly, not 
sternly, like the old man of the 
White Mountains, but benign of 
aspect, and so beautiful in her 
rounded, womanly curves, that the 
late watcher on the beach falls into 
the dream of Endymion; but when 
he wakes in the grey dawn he finds 
her gone, and only a shapeless rock 
glistens in the rays of the rising sun." 
To the pleasure-loving tourist or 
connoisseur of Nature's gems the 
Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior 
carry with them an interest entirely 
unique and excelled by no other 
wonders of our country, not even 
excepting the Yosemite or Yellow- 
stone Park. 
") Seven miles east of Munising 
Station, we come upon the longest 
tangent on the line, thirty-five miles 
straight as the crow flies. In the next 




majestic profile looking towards the 
north — a woman's face, the Empress 
of the Lake. It is the pleasure of her 
Imperial Highness to visit the rock 
only by night, a Diana of the New 
World. In the daytime search is 
vain, she will not reveal herself; but 
when the low-down moon shines across 
the water, behold, she appears. She 



hundred miles we 
cross innumerable 
_ ^ tributaries of the 

Manistique and 
Tahquemenon Rivers. Numerous lakes 
lie along the courses and at the head 
waters of these streams, their waters 
teeming with speckled trout, black bass, 
muskallonge, pike, pickerel and perch. 
Deer, bear, geese, ducks, partridge are 
numerous, the whole region being un- 
excelled in its natural attractiveness to 
the fisherman and sportsman. 



DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE &f ATLANTIC RAILWAF. 



Seney, McMillan and Newberry 
are the principal towns. These are 
lumbering centres, while at Newberry 
the Newberry Furnace Co. have their 
extensive works. Teams, guides, boats, 
bait, hotel accommodations and every 
requisite for camp life and fishing or 
hunting expeditions are obtainable at 
these points at reasonable rates. 

THE LOG CABIN AS IT IS. 

Lumber camps have stared at us 
from clearings and peeped at us from 
clusters of tree trunks until here, in 
what seems to the reader the most un- 
interesting point we have touched, I 
must pause to say a few words about 
an experience I had. 

It was on the other side of the line 
in Canada where I was hunting the 
agile and circumspect mooge. It was 
at Christmas time last year. My 




guides were half-breed Indians who, 
like almost every one else in this great 
timber belt that I was in then and we 
are in now, were half lumbermen also, 
that is to say, when hunting was out 
of season and idling grew tiresome 
and bread was in demand, they shoul- 
dered axes "and lumbered," as they 
say. We passed a number of lumber 
camps and saw the same log huts oi 
cabins that we see again here in 
Michigan, and I grew very interested 
in the gigantic industry, in the skill 
with which the men sent the great 
trees falling, precisely to a hair, where 
they wanted them to fall ; in the de- 
pendence they placed on their axes — 
preferring to be armed with one rather 
than with any rifle that money can 
buy; in the splendid vigor of health 
they exhibited, wading into ice water 
as boldly as any Miss at Narragansett 
Pier wades into the summer 
sea; and finally I took an 
interest in their mode of 
living, herded like Chinese 
or Italian laborers in rows 
of bunks in these little 
cabins, building muscle 
upon plainest fare, eating, 
working and sleeping, with 
only the dissipation or rec- 
reative pleasure of now and 
then a pipe of tobacco. 

Little did I dream that 

I too, was to live like that. 

I spent my first nights out 

under the trees, sleeping 

upon balsam 

boughs. But 

the region 

where the 

game was to 



^.IVlu yejSifji'i 




ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



39 



be had was in a neighborhood whence 
the kimber hunters had moved, leaving 
one of their cabins vacant and tenant- 
less. Into that we moved, and there 
we kept house — years, it seemed to me 
— so tired of it did I get. We had a 
fire in the middle of the floor, and it 
took wood enough to build a block 
of cottages to keep that flame leaping 
for one week. There was a chimney 
over the alleged fire-place, but the 
smoke preferred to fill the cabin whence 
a little of it occasionally escaped 
when the door was opened or squeezed 
out reluctantly through the chinks in 
the walls, I never would treat a meer- 
schaum pipe the way that cabin treated 
me. 

At first I indulged in sentimental 
views of the situation. I thought how 
in this very way must have lived the pil- 
grim fathers and the missionary priests 




who were the bravest and best men 
who ever yet have trod this continent. 
I knew that Daniel Boone and Davy 
Crockett, and all the deities in the 
Walhalla of juvenile literature, cer- 
tainly did inhabit log cabins. I fancied 
the delight with which Captains Lewis 
and Clarke would have hailed such a 
" find " as this had they come upon it 
in the forest or on the prairie. I even 
hummed " The little old log cabin," as 
I ate my salt pork and drank that 
lumberman's tea, which would eat a 
hole in a monitor if a cup of it were 
spilled on the deck. 

But sentiment cannot fatten on salt 
pork three times a day, and poetry 
cannot be hung up like venison and 
smoked. Gradually I came to a pracr 
tical study of the situation. I grew 
tired of the utter inability to find any- 
thing to do when it rained, tired of the 
smoke and the salt pork and the hud- 
dle of men forever in each other's 
way. In another work I have 
soberly and calmly described 
the home-life of the Puri- 
tan father and the mission- 
ary as no historian ever 
described it before. 
I have given a 
pen picture of the 
boudoir of Davy 
Crockett's sweet- 
heart, consisting of 
acornerof adirt- 
..^ floored, smoke- 
^"^ grimed cabin, 
appointed with a 
W"^^~— pail of ice water 
~'^- and a comb that 

cried for artificial teeth. Davy 
himself doubtless used a limpid 
and gurgling brooklet for a wash- 
bowl, and stood up in the breeze 
to dry his face and hands — and 
even that was more recherche than 
the toilet-making of my In- 
dians, who prepared for break- 
fast by lighting a pipe with 
which to go out and wash their 
hands in a snow bank. 

I have no doubt at all that 
if Dickens had had the good 



40 



DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE &- ATLANTIC RAILWAY. 



luck to be born in America, he would 
have done as much for the log cabin as 
he did for that water-soaked scow that 
Peggoty lived in, and for the hundred 
other uncomfortable homes and modes 
of life around which he threw the halo 
of his kindly pen — but not if he act- 
ually lived in the timber and observed 
the peculiar customs of the neighbors, 
because then he would have known 
about what he was celebrating — always 
a fatal impediment to Art. 

THE EVER-CHANGING SCENE. 

At Sault Junction the line di- 
vides, one branch leading to St. 
Ignace, the other to Sault 
Ste. Marie. We will follow 
the right fork first, which lands 
us at St. Ignace after a run of 




forty-three miles 
through a sparsely 
settled tract, well watered by trout 
streams. Here we connect with the 
steamers of the D. & C. S. N. Co. for 
Detroit, Cleveland and all eastern 
points. 

St. Ignace is a flourishing village 
of about 3000 people. A large iron 
furnace and extensive gypsum deposits 
promise a rapid future growth. The 
central point of interest to the tourist 
is a spot about twenty feet square, near 



the middle of the village, where a plain 
marble shaft marks the grave of Pere 
Marquette, fit resting place, in the 
centre of the region in which his active, 
unselfish, zealous life had been spent. 
Here a powerful steam ferry trans- 
fers the solid train to Mackinaw City, 
across the Straits of Mackinac, landing 
us in Lower Michigan, where connec- 
tion is made with the Michigan Cen- 
tral and Grand Rapids and Indiana 
Railroads for Cheboygan, Petoskey, 
Detroit, Niag- 
ara Falls and 
all the eastern 
cities and re- 
sorts that most 
of us are at 
once fleeing 
from, and yet 
reluctantly ap- 
proaching. As 
we cross the 
straits our eyes 
drink in the 
beauty of an 
island, large 
and bold and 
picturesque, 
on the left 
hand, as we are 
j ourneying. 
You scarcely 
need to be told 
that it is fa- 
mous. The 
moment you 
set eyes on any 
of the places 
that popular 
decree has rendered royal — whether 
it be Newport or Saratoga, Lake George 
or whatsoever other grand rendezvous 
you please — you see the reason for it 
as well as the fact of it. Were there 
a poet or a vocalist in our party he 
might break out at sight of this mound 
of emerald heaped up in a sea of tur- 
quoise with the verses that a local 
minstrel has set to the perpetual 
melody of rhyme: 

Beauteous Isle ! I sing of thee, 

Mackinac, my Mackinac ; 
Thy lake-bound shores I love to see, 

Mackinac, my Mackinac. 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



41 



From Arch Rock's height and shelving steep 
To western cliffs and Lover's Leap, 
Where memories of the lost one sleep, 
Mackinac, my Mackinac. 

Thy shore once trod by British foe, 

Mackinac, my Mackinac : 
That day saw gallant Holmes laid low, 
Mackinac, my Mackinac. 
Now Freedom's flag above thee waves. 
And guards the rest of fallen braves — 
Their requiem sung by Huron's waves — 
Mackinac, my Mackinac. 

For that bold island is none other 
than Mackinac — "The Classic Isle of 
the Historic Straits " — now the finest 
watering place west of the Atlantic, 
and, as a health resort, unexcelled any- 
where. 



which I have not studied ; yet mv at- 
tention has, from time to time, been 
attracted to this essentially French 
trick of spelling a word one way and 
pronouncing it another. I ascribe it to 
the fact that (all over the northern 
country, at least) the French were the 
lexicographers of the Indian tongues, 
and applied to the words that the red 
men taught them the same habit that 
has led them to soften and feminize 
their own words of Latin origin. I am 
aware that the termination "'nac" is 
not a common one with them, or one 
that they particularly maltreat ; yet 







The word is spelled Mackinac, but 
it is pronounced '' Mackinaw." This 
is not only the local rendering of the 
word, but it is authorized by " Lippin- 
cott's Gazetteer." I may be rash to 
venture my opinion about a matter 



there are instances a-plenty in which the 
English obtained blunt and often rude 
nomenclatures from the Indians, and 
the French came after or before them 
and spelled the names as the English 
did, while pronouncing them with a 



42 



DULUTH^ SOUTH SHORE ^ ATLANTIC RAILWAY. 



roll and a "twang" all their own. But, 
however it came about, you must read 
the word Mackinac and pronounce 
it " Mackinaw," and let us hope the 
violence to your tongue and your logic 
will not need to be overcome by act of 
Legislature, as happened in Arkansas, 
whose Solons have actually enacted a 

4^. ^*-" 



ever-ready pad. The corner of a little 
cottage fell within the picture as he 
planned it and, with more care than 
was necessary, he drew its lines. The 
mistress of the dwelling saw the un- 
wonted apparition of two men of strange 
habit and suspicious interest in her 
domicile, and came out to learn what 




statute legalizing and enforcing the 
pronunciation " Arkansaw " — a twist of 
the tongue known to the majority of 
Americans only through the medium 
of a comic song. 

ABOUT WESTERN WATERING PLACES. 

Once before, when I was resting at 
a typical western watering place, in 
company with an artist of national re- 
nown, we decided that an especially 
pretty view from an angle of a lake-side 
road was too picturesque to entrust to 
memory, and so the artist sat down 
upon a tree-stump to sketch it on his 



designs were on foot against her peace. 
When she saw that the artist was 
sketching, and that her house was part 
of his subject, she was evidently re- 
lieved. 

"Are you a traveling — what do you 
call it — er-er photographer, I mean?" 
she inquired. 

" No," my friend said; he was "only 
an artist." 

" Well, that's the same thing, ain't 
it ?" she persisted. " Anyhow, husband 
and I have fixed up our house right 
smart this year, and he said, only 
t'other day, that if any photographer er 



ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE. 



43 



artist er anything came along that we'd 
oughter hev a picture of the place. 
What 'd you charge for one ?" 

With great difficulty we got the 
good woman to comprehend that we 
were otherwise employed, but that we 
meant to publish our work in an east- 
ern pictorial paper, and that we would 
see that she received one or more copies 
of this particular sketch, provided 
we remained of the opinion that it was 
worthy of publication when we reached 
home. She insisted upon our coming 
into her cosey little house, where she 
entertained us with all the politeness 
that was ever born in a gentle soul. 

She was not typical of the people 
one meets at western resorts, except 
from one point of view — her questions 
proved her to be unsophisticated, and 
in that respect she certainly was not 
western. But her free and democratic 
spirit, her hospitality, and her faith in 
her own judgment of our merits, all 
typified the qualities that most please a 
true son of the republic who visits our 



stalwart western country. And no- 
where is there such a chance to see 
these good qualities as in a popular va- 
cation rendezvous. It is worth the 
while of a stranger to go to such a 
place as Mackinac, just-to note their 
frank and honest respect for merit and 
manhood, granted readily, without a 
request for letters of introduction or a 
glimpse at your family Bible. 

But candor compels me to say that 
whoever wants to see all this in its 
purity had better hurry up. The 
heaping up of wealth and the crowd- 
ing of population are doing their 
work out west. They will be asking 
who your father was, out there, very 
soon. 

Mackinac has a distinctly stylish 
tone and side, one that has insisted up- 
on the service of as fine a hotel as any 
place boasts ; an element of wealth 
and culture that will soon deck the 
beautiful island with a cottage settle- 
ment like that at the Thousand Islands 
or at Narragansett Pier. 




'^M3 



MACKINAC. 




/ACKINAC Island lies like 
yiHa..Uifjy4 ^ broken link between 
iipper and lower Michigan. Around 
it meet the waters of the two great 
lakes, Huron and Michigan, whose 
level is five hundred and eighty-one 
feet above the sea. This island has 
sufficient area to cause a journey of 
nine miles in skirting its shores, yet we 
may practically walk all over it in a 
day. It is shapen as if it had been 
made square, and then some giant 
force had pulled each of its corners 
a little away. It rises sheer above 
the translucent waters, a great plateau, 
two hundred to three hundred feet in 
height, wooded luxuriantly and framed 
with a broad white beach. 

As is the custom with old villages, 
wherever they are seen, the little orig- 
inal settlement crouches at the foot of 
the bluff beneath the fort — a. straggling, 
picturesque settlement of shops and 
cottages, churches and hotels, facing the 
white strand and the marvelously clear 
water. As is also the custom with the 
wiser planning of mankind to-day, the 
far choicer high ground is being built 
upon with modern hotels and lovely 
villas. Up there, also, is the military 
reservation of one hundred and three 
acres, and the remainder has been set 
apart by the Government — justly ap- 
preciating its unique attractions — for a 
National Park. 

In the hotel accommodations will be 
found service for the luxurious as well 
as for folks of plainest tastes and 
moderate means. The leading hos- 



telry is Plank's Grand, an establish- 
ment comparable with any on the 
continent. The " Grand " towers 
above a high bluff on the westerly end 
of the island, commanding a superb 
view of the Straits of Mackinac, 
whence comes an almost unintermit- 
tent cool breeze. The majestic build- 
ing is the first object on the island 
apparent from the decks of incoming 
steamers. The descent from the bluff 
to the beach is about three hundred 
feet, pleasantly made upon a rustic 
stairway. The hotel is new and mod- 
ern in all its appointments, having 
been built at a cost of $300,000 in 
the spring of 1887, to accommodate 
1000 visitors. It is the finest caravan- 
sary in the north. The *' Grand" is 
six hundred and fifty feet long and 
five stories in height, surmounted by 
a tall tower, from which an expansive 
and uninterrupted view may be ob- 
tained. The architecture is of the 
"Old Colonial" style, its distinctive 
feature being a colonnaded portico, 
upon which the windows of every floor 
open. This portico or veranda is 
twenty-two to thirty-two feet in width, 
and extends the entire length of the 
house, a magnificent promenade. From 
the large rotunda office opposite the 
main entrance, spacious halls, running 
the length of the building, lead to the 
breakfast room, dining hall, and ordi- 
nary, on one side, and to the reading 
and drawing rooms, and private parlors, 
on the other. Of these apartments, es- 
pecial attention is called to the dining 



MACKINAC. 



45 



hall, a mammoth brilliantly lighted 
and perfectly ventilated room, capable 
of accommodating six hundred people. 
It occupies the space of two stories, 
its vaulted ceiling being twenty-seven 
feet overhead, and the handsomely 
decorated windows in proportion. The 
guest rooms are all large, light and 
well furnished. Each front suite is pro- 
vided with a private balcony, a novel 
but highly attractive feature of the 
"Grand." The hotel is lighted by gas 
and electricity, heated with steam, and 
provided with an elevator and electric 
call and fire-alarm bells. It is also 
equipped with barber shop, bath-rooms, 
steam laundry and a first-class livery, 
the last two enterprises under the man- 
agement of A. Fisk Starr,known to fame 
as the genial charioteer of Mackinac. 
An orchestra discourses music during 
meal hours and enlivens the veranda and 
ball-room in the evening. The Casino, 
at the south of the 
^ , " hotel, furnishes all desir- 
- •, , able indoor 

;' .. o'-v'^v'Si'jy-rl' ■ amusements. 




There are several other good hotels 
on the island, the leading ones being 
the Mission House and the John 
Jacob Astor House. 

Having decided the matmer in which 
you will be housed during your stay,, 
the next point is to consider how you 
will spend your time: What are the at- 
tractions ? Will your holidays be agree- 
ably passed ? 

Lieut. Greeley, the Arctic hero, in 
an article written for Scribner' s Mag- 
azine and entitled, " Where shall we 
spend the summer?" names Mack- 
inac as pre-eminent in possessing the 
cool, dry bracing air necessary to 
health, while ex-Surgeon General Wil- 
liam A. Hammond, the famous special- 
ist, long of New York and now of 
Washington, writes as follows : 

" So far as my personal experience 
goes, there is no place so good in every 
respect for the exhausted city worker 
of the East, the banker, the merchant, 
the professional man and his wife and 
children — who have probably in their 
way worked as hard as he has — as the 
Island of Mackinac. 

"It lies in the straits of the same- 
name, between Lake Michigan and Lake 
Huron. Every breeze that comes to 
it blows over the water and parts with 
its surplus heat. The air is dry and 
bracing; the middle of the day warm 
for two or three hours; the nights cool 
and invigorating. There is not a bad 
smell in the island; not a mosquito 
nor any other kind of pestilent insect. 
I found all this out when I was sta- 
tioned there as medical officer a year 
before the civil war. I tried it last 
year on the strength of my recollec- 
tions of more than twenty-five years 
ago, and, as the result of my experi- 
ence, I am going there again this year. 
I have no hesitation in saying that it is 
the best summer resort of which I 
have any knowledge for persons 
whose nervous systems are run 
down, or who desire to be built up 
and strengthened." 



46 DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE &f ATLANTIC RAILWAY. 



PLEASURE FOR ALL TASTES. 

Mackinac offers as many ways of 
Icilling dull time, or making dull time 
gay, as any resort in America. That is 
a ponderous assertion ; because there 
are almost as many appetites, normal 
and false, as there are possibilities of 
satisfying them. I remember once in 
one of those fugitive, chance meetings 



very best fun in the world, it would be 
a winter's straw ride in the country with 
his old companions and sweethearts, 
terminating with a dinner and a dance, 
and a moonlight journey home. Avery 
red-faced old man smiled contemptu- 
ously at this, and said, "A dinner! 
Heaven defend me from a dinner such 
as you would get. It would consist of 
ham and eggs and milk and doughnuts 




TV^^^'* 






that occur between men on long rail- 
road journeys (and to which the ladies 
are and must be strangers), the con- 
versation turned to a discussion of the 
greatest pleasure in life. A very young 
man said that, if he could choose the 



— sudden death in four forms." What 
he enjoyed most keenly, he said, was 
a canvas-back duck cooked as it can 
be cooked only in Baltimore or Wash- 
ington, and enriched by a bottle of 
Chambertin. 



MACKINAC. 



47 



" Pshaw !" said a dandyish man, 
with steel-gray hair and clothing that 
bore the London stamp; "give me 
my vacht and half a gale astern, and 
give me all the sea room I want. Then, 
as the boat careens and dips her rail 
in the sea, and the spray flies and the 
sail strains, I'll throw myself on my 
back, pipe in mouth, upon the deck, 
and never will man dream of greater 
pleasure than mine." 

" And yet," said a commercial trav- 
eler, " perhaps I'll be to-night where I 
shall pale your sensations into nothing. 
If I meet the men I expect to, we will 
gather around a table and have a little 
game of ' draw.' Nine-tenths of the 
game will be insipid, but there will 
come a moment when I will have a 
splendid hand; a partner will fancy he 
has a better one. We will pit our 
hands against one another. The other 
players will draw out — you know the 
rest. I would not exchange those mo- 
ments of anxiety, hope, doubt, wonder, 
desperation and triumph for all the 
dancing maidens, the Delmonico's fare 
and the stupid boats in all creation." 

"I see that not one of you knows 
Avhat pleasure is," said the last man in 
the group— a heavy-jawed, rather dull- 
faced fellow. " Did your ever fish — 
for game fish, I mean — trout, black 
bass, muskallonge, pickerel — I care not 
which ? Ah, there's a sensation ! You 
are beneath a blue sky, in a cooling 
breeze, with the green drapery of 
Nature gladdening every view. But 
3'ou are uncertain whether you are to 
have any sport or not ; just a little 
tired and discouraged — thinking of 
going back to your camp or trying 
somewhere else — when, zip!!! what's 
that ? Your line pulls, your rod bends, 
you have got a dandy — a two-pounder, 
at least. Then follows one minute, or 
five minutes, of keenest, wildest, most 
magnetic, thrilling pleasure. What is 
it ? Will you get it ? Oh, thunder ! 
It's off ; but, no, no ; there it is again. 
Give it a little line ; reel in steady and 
slow. There ! see that ! a black bass 
— a big one — it leaped a foot from the 
water ! Oh, my friends, take your 



dreamy waltzes, your ruddy wine, your 
demoralizing cards, your horses and 
your boats ; but give me an hour at a 
good fishing ground, and I'll ask no 
more." 

At Mackinac every one of those 
dreamers would find satisfaction, and 
so would twice as many more of dif- 
ferent tastes. The wondrous clear 
water, clearer than ever Lake George 
boasted, reveals the fish that you may 
catch ; for you can see them gliding 
beneath you. It offers unparalleled 
boating pleasures, by oar and sail ; the 
epicure will never fare better than 
there. There is bathing, too — a rare 
treat in the northern country; for in 
Lake Superior, for instance, I have 
heard that the water is so chilly that 
the sailors who work upon it do not 
learn to swim. There is dancing, there 
are many delightful pleasure routes for 
daily excursions, there is music, and, 
as to the girls — the Mackinac girls are 
as famous as the West is celebrated for 
the production of fine women. They 
come to this great resort in large num- 
bers, from as far away as St. Paul, Chi- 
cago and Cincinnati — in lesser num- 
bers from all parts of America. The 
young men who rove with fancies free 
yet anxious to be fettered, tell me there 
is no such beauty show in any of the 
other resorts. At Mackinac all the 
elements meet — the fashionable, the 
cultivated and the homespun beauties 
of the nation. The combination of 
scenic and human loveliness recalls 
that '* Daydream on the Rhine," in the 
collection of poems edited by Long- 
fellow : 

11* + * Where the laughing hills 

Thy majesty do greet, 
And echoes call from rock to rock 

All through the noonday heat. 
In earliest dusk the gathering stars 

Above thee love to meet. 

" When lovers in the ferry-boat 

Forget the passing tide, 
And closer drawn, cling lip to lip, 

What though the river 's wide. 
And silver clouds no secrets tell 

To the towers on either side." 

So, when I tell you of the woodland 
walks, of the row-boats and the sail- 
boats, of the bathing, and the tennis, 
and the dancing, and the picnics, and 



48 



DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE &f ATLANTIC RAILWAY. 



the excursions, and then declare the 
ladies to be matchless — if you want 
more, not all my travels sufifice for me 
to direct you where to go. 

The highest praise, I think, that can 
be given to that or any place, I heard 
spoken with regard to Mackinac by a 
well-known New Yorker, who went 
there to spend a vacation such as he 
always had enjoyed, wath varied sports 
and pleasures : " But I had over- 
worked," he said, "and was in that 
nervous condition when I fancied no 
place in the world would please me. 
And yet I not only had the best en- 
joyment of my life, but I got it from 
doing nothing. I simply drank in that 
marvelous tonic air, and loafed about in 
that wondrous placid scenery without 
a desire unsatisfied, only dreading the 
hour when I must pack up and leave it." 

It takes a brass band to make some 
resorts popular. Mackinac needs noth- 
ing that Nature did not give it. 

THE SQUAW WAY OF SHOPPING. 

To a visitor from the East, the num- 
ber of Indians seen, especially in Mich- 



igan, makes a deep impression. They 
are best seen and studied at Mackinac, 
where they perform a great deal of the 
work that is not wholly servile. They 
are the fishermen, boatmen, guides- 
and gardeners of the region. It is very 
interesting to see their squaws at the 
village at Mackinac in the summer- 
tide. You will be apt to come upon 
three or four, with their blankets 
around them, seated in a store. You 
make your own purchases, go away, 
and return in an hour and there are 
those squaws just as you left them — 
still sitting there. That is how they 
shop. They like to sit down and 
contemplate the goods. If the pro- 
prietor tries to hurry them, they will 
leave the place. When they get 
ready they buy, often by exchanging 
their goods for those of the white 
people. Very many beautiful varieties 
of Indian work in beads and bark 
are to be had at low prices in Mack- 
inac, and many an Eastern and far 
Western and European home is dec- 
orated with these trophies of a summer 
at that place. 




SPECIAL FEATURES AT MACKINAC. 



THE FORTS. 

Fort Mackinac, which stands on 
a rocky eminence just above the town, 
was built by the Enghsh in 1780. The 
buildings are a hospital, outside the 
wall and east of the fort; a guard- 
house, near the south gate; officers' 
quarters on the hill near the flag-staff; 
quarters for the men in the centre; 
block-houses on the walls; magazine 
in the hollow, not far from the south 
gate; store-houses, offices, etc. There 
are persons yet living on the Island 
who, during the troubles of 1814, took 
refuge in these self-same block-houses. 
In the rear of the fort is the parade 
ground, and the spot where Captain 
Roberts planted his guns in 1812, while 
his whole force of Indians was con- 
cealed in the adjacent thickets. Capt. 
Roberts disembarked at British Land- 
ing, marched across the Island and 
took up his station at this point with- 
out being discovered. 

Half or three-quarters of a mile be- 
hind Fort Mackinac, on the crowning 
point of the island, is Fort Holmes, 
built soon after the British captured 
the post in 181 2. Each citizen was 
compelled to give three days' work to- 
ward its construction. The excava- 
tion encircling the embankment, or 
earthworks^ was originally broader and 
deeper than now. The place of the 
gate is seen on the east side, one of the 
posts yet remaining to mark its position. 
In the centre of the fort was erected 
a huge block-house, beneath which 
was the magazine. Near the gate was 
the entrance to several underground cel- 
lars, which have now caved in. The fort 
was defended by what we would now 
call " pop-guns," the largest of which 
was only an eighteen-pounder. His- 
tory shows this fort to have been con- 



sidered a very remarkable and formi- 
dable defense in its time. Its first name 
was Fort George, but when it became 
an American possession it was re- 
named in honor of Major Holmes, a 
hero who fell at Early's Farm. 

Robinson's folly. 

Robinson's Folly is just that and 
nothing more. Like so many land- 
marks that acquire names existent 
long before they are written, the origin 
of the name will not bear too particu- 
lar an investigation. The cliff itself 
is quite worthy its fame as the visitor 
will see. One legend has it that 
" Captain Robinson, a great admirer of 
ladies, while strolling in the woods 
suddenly beheld a few rods before him 
a beautiful girl, who retreated as fast 
as he approached, until finally she 
stood almost on the edge of the cliff, 
and in his eagerness to capture, as well 
as to save her from that death which 
would have been preferable to his in- 
tentions, the captain sprang forward to 
seize her, but just as he clutched her 
arm, she threw herself forward into 
the chasm, dragging her tormentor and 
would-be saviour with her. His body 
alone was found. He was long 
mourned by his men and brother 
officers, until by and by it began to be 
whispered that the captain had in- 
dulged too freely in the fine old French 
brandy that the fur traders brought 
up from Montreal, and the lady was a 
mere ignis fatuus of his excited imag- 
ination, but the mantle of sentiment 
has been thrown over the tragedy, and 
a romantic explanation given in its 
place." 

Another legend records that after 
the removal of the fort to the island 
in 1780, Captain Robinson, who then 
commanded the post, had a summer 



50 DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE &- ATLANTIC RAIL WAV. 



house built upon the cUff, which soon 
became a frequent resort for himself 
and brother officers. Pipes, cigars and 
wine were called into requisition, for no 
entertainment was thought complete 
without them, and thus many an hour 
passed pleasantly away. After a few 



cannot fully describe the novelty and 
beauty of this eccentricity of Nature 
or the sensations it produces. It is a 
magnificent natural arch, spanning a 
chasm of eighty or ninety feet in 
height, and forty or fiftv in width. 
The summit of this rock is one hun- 




€hterihCi IPCK 



years, by the action of the elements, 
a portion of the cliff, together with 
the house, fell to the base of the rock, 
which disastrous event gave rise to the 
name. The brow of this cliff is one 
hundred and twenty-seven feet high. 

FAIRY ARCH. 

Fairy Arch lies a little to the north 
of this. It stands out boldly near the 
base of an immense rock, and is well 
worth the trouble of a visit. Words 



dred and forty-nine feet above the 
level of the lake. Its alnitments are 
composed of calcareous rock, and the 
opening underneath the arch has been 
produced by the falling down of the 
great masses of rock now to be seen 
upon the beach below. A path to the 
right leads to the brink of the arch, 
whence the visitor, if sufficiently reck- 
less, may pass to its summit, which is 
about three feet in width. Here we 
see twigs of cedar growing out of what 



SPECIAL FEATURES AT MACKLXAC. 



51 



appears to be solid rock, while in the 
rear and on either hand the lofty 
eminence is clothed with trees and 
shrubbery — maple, birch, poplar, cedar, 
and balsam — giving to the landscape 
richness and variety. Before us are 
the majestic waters of Lake Huron, 
dotted in the distance with islands. 
We may now descend through the 
great chasm, " arched by the hand 
of God," and at the base of the pro- /^ 

/, 



is two hundred and eighty-four feet 
above the lake. Its composition is the 
same as that of Arch Rock. Its shape 
is conical, and from its crevices grow a 
few vines and cedars. It is cavernous, 
and in the north side is an opening suf- 
ficient to admit several individuals. 
The view from the top is exquisite. 
Half a mile to the rear of the fort, 
and only a short distance to the right 







jecting angle of the main rock find a 
second arch less magnificent, but no 
less curious and wonderful. Passing 
under this, we soon reach the beach 
below, whence the view is particularly 
grand and imposing. 

It is held that the portion support- 
ing the arch on the north side, and the 
curve of the arch itself, are compara- 
tively fragile, and cannot for a long 
period resist the action of rains and 
frosts, which, in this latitude, and on 
a rock thus constituted, produce great 
ravages every season. The arch, 
which on one side now connects this 
abutment with the main cliff, will soon 
l)e destroyed, as well as the abutment 
itself, and the whole, be precipitated 
into the lake. 

SUGAR LOAF ROCK. 

The plateau upon which Sugar Loaf 
Rock stands is one hundred and fifty 
feet high, while the summit of the rock 



of the road leading to Early's Farm, is 

SKULL ROCK, 

noted as the place in which Alexander 
Henry was secreted by the Chippewa 
chief, Wawatan, after the massacre of 
the British garrison at Old Mackinaw. 
Near the house now occupied by Mr. 
Early is that relic of 181 2, the old 
Dousman house, across the road from 
which is the battle-ground. A short 
distance down the road leading through 
this farm is 

BRITISH LANDING, 

where Captain Roberts disembarked a 
force of English, French and Indians 
to take the island in 181 2. The Ameri- 
cans, under Col. Croghan, also landed 
a-t this same place in August, 18 14, 
under cover of the guns of the squad- 
ron, and marched to the edge of the 
clearing, now Early's Farm. But the 
enemy were in waiting, and hardly had 



52 DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE ^ ATLANTIC RAILWAY. 



he reached the scene when a fire was 
opened upon him, and the woods on 
every side Hterally swarmed with sav- 
ages. He was obHged to retreat, with 
the loss of Major Hohnes ar.d several 
men. To the right of British Landing 
is the road through the woods to 

scott's cave, 

which is under one of the huge rocks 
peculiar to Mackinac. Its entrance is 
very low, but in the interior a giant 
might stand erect. Unless provided 
with a candle or lantern, the visitor 
will find himself in almost total dark- 
ness. 

Leaving the town at its western ex- 
tremity, and following the foot-path 
around the brow of the high bluffs 
which bound the southwestern side of 
the island, for about a mile, then, de- 
scending a zig-zag stair, you come to 
the 

devil's kitchen, 

a cavernous rock, curious in its forma- 
tion as well as its name. Near it is a 
spring of clear, cold water. The road 
along the beach should not be used, as 
it is utterly impracticable. A few yards 
further on is the famous 

lover's leap. 

The Lover's Leap, about a mile 
west of the village, is a high, perpen- 
dicular bluff, rising sheer from the lake 
nearly two hundred feet. The legend 
that gives the giant cliff its name 
is of a young Ojibway girl and 
her warrior love. You who have not 
seen the noble red man and his squaw 
will perhaps find a great deal more 
poetry and charm in the legend than 
those of us who have made the ac- 
quaintance of the various tribes from 
Hudson Bay to the Apache country. 
At all events, it is the story that gave 
the bluff its name — almost identically 
the story that attaches to another emi- 
nence near Stockbridge, Mass., and to 
scores of places of lesser fame. The 
Ojibway girl's name was Me-che-ne- 
mock-e-nung-o-qua, and you will please 
remember that it was with no hope of 



ever changing it that she fell in love 
with Ge-niw-e-gwon, the valiant brave, 
for marriage does not offer that boon 
to the Indian girl. At all events, she 
often wandered to this cliff and gazed 
from its dizzy heights, and witnessed 
the receding canoes of the large war 
parties of the combined bands of the 
Ojibway s and Ottawas speeding south, 
seeking fame and scalps. 

And it is recorded that she sang the 
Ojibway love-song, running like this : 

" A loon, I thought, was looming, 
A loon, I thought, was looming. 
Why ! it is he, my lover ! 
Why ! it is he, my lover ! 
His paddle in the waters gleaming. 
His paddle in the waters gleaming." 

Those Indian songs are pretty only 
when you can't hear them, by theM'ay, 
and it happened that when she sang 
the brave she loved was far enough 
away to feel no disturbance from the 
music. The tale goes on to say that 
she could distinguish his cries amid 
the shouts of the returning warriors ; 
but one day she missed his voice, for 
an enemy's arrow had pierced his heart, 
and after his body had been placed 
against a tree, facing his enemies, the 
rest of the tribe left him and came 
home. The heart of the girl with the 
long name hushed its beatings, and all 
its warm emotions were chilled and 
dead. The spirit of her beloved war- 
rior she witnessed continually beckon- 
ing her to follow him to the happy 
hunting grounds of spirits in the West; 
he appeared to her in human shape, 
but was invisible to others of his tribe. 

One morning her body was found 
mangled at the foot of the bluff. The 
soul had thrown aside its covering of 
earth, and gone to join the spirit of 
her beloved brave, to travel together 
to the land of spirits. 

chimney rock 

is a very remarkable freak of Nature. 
A foot-path which leads from the beach 
near the base of Lover's Leap to the 
plateau above brings you to the Daven- 
port farm, now owned by the Mackinac 
Island Summer Resort Association, 
where a miniature village of elegant 



S FECI A L FEA TURES AT MA CKINA C. 



53 



summer cottages has been built, to 
which additions are made each season. 
A central building is used as a dining- 
hall, from which meals are furnished 
at very near cost. Eighty acres have 
been neatly laid out and platted, and 
lots for the erection of cottages can be 
purchased on very advantageous terms. 
Improvements already aggregate many 
thousands of dollars. 

Mackinac's exquisite scenery. 

From many pens whose touch has 
been inspired by the beauty of this 
*' Island of the Dancing Fairies," I 
gather these descriptions of its charms: 
The natural scenery of the Island of 
Mackinac is unsurpassed. Nature 
seems to have exhausted herself in the 
clustered objects of interest which 
everywhere meet the eye. The lover 
of Nature may wander through the 
shaded glens, and climb over the rug- 
ged rocks of this island for weeks, and 
even months, and never grow weary; 
for each day some new object of 
beauty and interest will attract his at- 
tention. As you approach the island 
it appears a perfect gem. A finer sub- 
ject for an artist's pencil could not be 
found. In some places it rises almost 
perpendicularly 
from the very water' s 
edge to the height 
of one hundred and 
fifty feet, while 
in others the 



ascent is gradual. Parts of the island 
are covered with a small growth of 
hard-wood trees — beech, maple, iron- 
wood, birch, etc. — while other parts 
abound in a rich variety of ever- 
greens, among which spruce, arbor- 
vitae, ground-pine, white-pine, balsam 
and juniper predominate. 

Henry R. Schoolcraft, who first 
visited the island in 1820, thus speaks 
of it: 

" Nothing can exceed the beauty of 
this island. It is a mass of calcareous 
rock, rising from the bed of Lake 
Huron, and reaching an elevation of 
more than three hundred feet above 
the water. The waters around are 
purity itself. Some of its cliffs shoot 
up perpendicularly, and tower in pin- 
nacles, like ruined Gothic steeples. 
It is cavernous in some places; and in 
these caverns the ancient Indians, like 
those of India, have placed their dead. 
Portions of the beach are level, and 
adapted to landing from boats and 
canoes. The harbor, at its south end, 
is a little gem. Vessels anchor in it, 
and find good holding. The little, 
old-fashioned French town nestles 
around it in a very primitive style. 
The fort frowns above it, like another 




Alhambra, its white 
walls gleaming in 
the sun. The whole 
area of the 
island is one 
labyrinth of 
curious little 
glens and 
valleys. Old 
green fields 
~ appear, in 

some s{)ots, which have been for- 
merly cultivated by the Indians. 



SPECIAL FEATURES AT MACKINAC. 



55 



In some of these there are circles of 
gathered-up stones, as if the Druids 
themselves had dwelt here. The soil, 
though rough, is fertile, being the com- 
minuted materials of broken-down 
limestones. The island was formerly 
covered with a dense growth of rock 
maples, oaks, iron-wood, and other 
hard- wood species; and there are still 
parts of this ancient forest left, but all 
the southern limits of it exhibit a 
voung growth. There are Avalks and 
winding paths among its little hills, 
and precipices of the most romantic 
character. And whenever the visitor 
gets on eminences overlooking the lake, 
he is transported with sublime views 
of a most illimitable and magnificent 
water prospect. If the poetic muses 
are ever to have a new Parnassus in 
America, they should inevitably fix on 
Michilimackinac. Hygeia, too, should 
place her temple here; for it has one 
of the purest, driest, clearest and 
most healthful atmospheres." 

It is a tourist's paradise. Rising 
grandly from the mighty channel, in 
Avhich the waters of two of earth's 
greatest unsalted oceans — Huron and 
Michigan — meet and blend in eter- 
nal billowy harmony, Mackinac Island 
(nearly nine miles in circumference) 
towers at its highest point over three 
hundred feet above the waves that 
lave its snowy feet. 

A sail around the island in any of 
the little steamers or yachts that are 
always at command presents a con- 
tinuous succession of charming views, 
but none is more striking than that on 
entering the harbor at its southern end. 
The beautiful bay is crescent-shaped, 
and its waters are so clear that a white 
marble or a silver quarter can be dis- 
tinctly seen at a depth of from twenty 
to fifty feet. Myriads of fish are 
plainly visible as they cleave their way 
through the liquid crystal. 

Overlooking the bay, the tall white 
cliffs with their back-ground of wav- 
ing forest; the fort, with its massive 
Avails of whitewashed stone, clinging 
picturesquely to the brow of the preci- 
pice; the straggling little town at its 



feet, strongly recalling visions of Italian 
fishing villages; the long rambling 
hotels, with verandas above and beloAv; 
the neat residences, Avith their grass- 
plots and shrubbery, fountains and 
flowers, mingling among buildings that 
have been historic for three genera- 
tions; and, as a frontispiece to it all, 
the Avide, smooth, gently-sloping beach 
of snowy sand on Avhich the sunlit 
Avaters ever play, all combine to form 
a picture that, once seen, is never for- 
gotten. 

" The natural scenery of Mackinac 
is charming," Avrites Constance Feni- 
more Woolson, Avhose admirable story 
of Anne is a local as well as a national 
classic. " The geologist finds myster- 
ies in the masses of calcareous rock 
dipping at unexpected angles; the anti- 
quarian feasts his eyes on theDruidical 
circles of ancient stones; the invalid 
sits on the cliff's edge, in the vivid sun- 
shine, and breathes in the buoyant air 
with delight, or rides slowly over the 
old military roads, with the spicer}^ of 
cedars and juniper alternating with the 
fresh forest odors of young maples 
and beeches. The haunted birches 
abound, and on the crags grow the 
Aveird larches, beckoning Avith their 
long fingers — the most human tree of 
all. Bluebells, on their hair-like stems, 
SAving from the rocks, fading at a 
touch, and in the deep Avoods are the 
Indian pipes, but the ordinary wild- 
flowers are not to be found. Over to- 
Avard the British Landing stand the 
Gothic spires of the blue-green spruces, 
and now and then an Indian trail 
crosses the road, Avorn deep by the 
feet of the red men when the Fairy 
Island was their favorite and sacred 
resort." 

On the edge of a perpendicular 
precipice of white limestone, a hun- 
dred and fifty-five feet high, just back 
of the town, is the fort Avhich, in pict- 
uresque beauty of location, has no rival 
among all the fortresses of the United 
States. Its position somewhat resem- 
bles that of Fort Snelling, but is much 
more romantic. Magnificent views 
of the surrounding lakes, channels. 



56 



DULUTH SOUTH SHORE &> ATLANTIC RAILWAY. 



islands, promontories, forests, towns 
and shipping are to be had from 
every point on the lofty parapet; and 
the world affords no grander sight 
than a sunrise or sunset from the fort, 
the great globe of crimson and gold 
seeming at its rising to burst up from 
the bosom of Lake Huron and at its 
setting to plunge into the midst of 
Lake Michigan, casting a million pris- 
matic tints of glorious light on wave 
and sky. It was of one of these gor- 
geous sunset scenes that Longfellow 
wrote : 

" Can it be the sun descending 
O'er the level plain of water? 
Or the Red Swan floating, flying, 
Wounded by the magic arrow, 

Staining all the waves with crimson — 
With the crimson of its life-blood; 
Filling all the air with splendor — 
With the splendor of its plumage ? " 

In such a spot, with the glories of 
earth and heaven unrolled before the 
gaze; where the atmosphere is as pure 



as the gales that wandered over pri- 
meval paradise; where the temperature 
is always cool enough to be bracing and 
invigorating; where a mosquito never 
was seen, nor malaria ever known; 
where the inducements to constant ex- 
ercise of every sense and sinew are as 
boundless as the beauties of the place, 
and where the healing fragrance of the 
pine, the hemlock and balsam fir are 
borne on every breeze, dyspepsia, lan- 
guor and low spirits take flight at once, 
hay-fever victims are at rest, and 
catarrhs and asthmas mysteriously 
disappeax. 

The querulous invalid, before he 
knows it, finds himself boating, fishing, 
strolling, flirting like a Harvard fresh- 
man. Well might Horace Mann, writ- 
ing of the influence of " the wonderful 
isle " say, " I never breathed such 
an air before. I think this must be 
some that came clear out of Eden 
and did not get cursed." 




A CRADLE OF HISTORY. 



The history that we venerate as 
patriots is juvenile compared with the 
chronicles and legends that distinguish 
Mackinac and its neighborhood. When 
all Southern Michigan yet lacked its 
Marquette or its Stanley, Mackinac 
was a missionary seat, a trader's post 
and a garrisoned stronghold. From 
Mackinac colonization spread through- 
out the surrounding territory, Wiscon- 
sin and even Minnesota being settled 
by men who started from this citadel 
of progress. Cadillac, founder of 
Detroit (in 1701), had long com- 
manded at Mackinac. Men alive to- 
day recall when Chicago drew her sup- 
plies from this place. 

One thoughtful writer has well said 
that this was by no chance or trick of 
destiny; " Mackinac is a historical cen- 
tre because it is a geographical centre. 
Nature alone gave it its advantages, 
and made it what it has been in his- 
tory. For years the natural advan- 
tages of Mackinac were overlooked, and 
the surging wave of population rolled 
across Southern Michigan and so on 
to the westward. At the present time, 
however, this region is rapidly rising 
into favor, owing to the fact that it is 
becoming better known and properly 
appreciated." 

The flags of three great nations have 
successively floated over the post at 
Michilimackinac, which has been the 
theatre of many a bloody tragedy. Its 
possession has been disputed by pow- 
erful nations, and its internal peace has 
continually been made the sport of 
Indian treachery and Caucasian du- 
plicity. One day chanting Te Dennis 
beneath the ample folds of \he fleur- 
de-lis, next yielding to the power of 
the British Lion, now it rests peace- 
. fully as the stars and stripes float over 



its verdant battlements. Its historical 
associations render it classic ground, 
and the many wild traditions peopling 
each rock and glen with spectral habi- 
tants combine to throw around Mack- 
inac an interest and sentimental attract- 
iveness such as few if any other places 
on the Western Continent possess. 

As far back as history begins to 
blend with traditions that reach into 
the dimmest past, Mackinac Island has 
been a place of great interest. A le- 
gend relates that a large number of 
Indians were once assembled at Point 
St. Ignace, now the eastern terminus of 
the DuLUTH, South Shore & Atlan- 
tic Railway, and while intently gazing 
at the rising sun, during the great Mani- 
tou, or February Moon, they beheld 
the island suddenly rise up from the 
water, assuming its present form. From 
the point of observation, it bore the 
fancied resemblance to the back of a 
huge turtle ; hence they called it by 
the name of Mos-che-ne-mac-e-nung, 
which means a great turtle. This name, 
when put into a French dress, became 
Michilimackinac, to be in turn again 
abbreviated by the always-practical 
English into Mackinac. 

To revert to its legendary' interest: 
According to Indian tradition, the 
island is the birthplace of Menabosho, 
the god of waters — the Hiawatha of 
the Algonquin Indians. Indian my- 
thology makes it the home of the Giant 
Fairies, and the red men, in passing its 
shores, made offerings of tobacco and 
other articles to these spirits. These 
fairies, we are told, had a subterranean 
abode under the island, the entrance 
to which was near the base of the hill, 
just below the present southern gate of 
the fort. An old Indian, who once 
revisited the limits of the present 



58 DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE &- ATLANTIC RAIL WAV. 



garrison, was believed by his kinsmen 
to have had exceptional opportunity to 
prove the truth of this tradition. These 
were the circumstances : During the 
night, while he was wrapped in slum- 
ber, one of the spirits laid his shadowy 
hand upon him and beckoned him to 
follow. In obedience to the myste- 
rious request, the Indian's soul parted 
from his body and went with the fair}-. 
Together they entered the mystic dwell- 
ing place of the spirits, and the Indian 
was introduced to the great spirits as- 
sembled in solemn conclave. He was 
lost in wonder and admiration at what 
he saw around him, and he described 
the place where they were assembled 
as a very large and beautiful wigwam. 
Beyond that, he simply asserted that, 
after a time, the master spirit of the 
assembly directed one of the lesser 
spirits to conduct him back to his 
body. The story is chiefly interesting 
to me as showing that it was as easy to 
concoct a spiritualistic story then as it 
is to-day — and just as easy to make 
some folks believe it afterwards ! 

The ''Ancient Miners" of Upper 
Michigan, presumably connected with 
the " Mound-builders" of the Missis- 
sippi Valley, and with the Toltecs and 
Aztecs of old Mexico, may have had 
an agricultural outpost at St. Ignace 
or Mackinac Island. The vestiges of 
a mound have been traced in the 
neighborhood of Point La Barbe. No 
tradition, however, referring to that 
people is found among our Indians. 
The earliest inhabitants known to them 
were of their own kind, the Mishini- 
makinago, /. e., " the people of Mishi- 
nimakina." 

In 167 1, Father Marquette, pioneer 
and priest, wrote that " Michilimack- 
inac is an island famous in these 
regions, of more than a league in di- 
ameter, and elevated in some places by 
such high cliffs as to be seen more than 
twelve leagues off. It is situated just 
in the strait forming the communica- 
tion between Lake Huron and Illinois 
(Michigan). It is the key and, as it 
were, the gate for all the tribes from 
the south, as the Sault is for those of the 



north, there being in this section of 
country only those two passages by 
water ; for a great number of nations 
have to go by one or other of these 
channels, in order to reach the French 
settlements. This presents a peculiarly 
favorable opportimity both for instruct- 
ing those Avho pass here, and also for 
obtaining easy access and conveyance 
to their places of abode." 

Father Marquette was doubtless the 
first white man to visit it or, at least, 
to dwell upon it. He established a 
school on the island in 167 1, for the 
education of the Indian youths, and so 
much was he attached to '* the Straits " 
that, when he died in 1675, it was at 
his request his Indian converts brought 
his body back to the little mission es- 
tablished by him at St. Ignace. 

The first vessel ever seen on these 
waters was the " Grifiin," built by the 
explorer, La Salle, on Lake Erie, in 
1678. 

In 1695, Cadillac, who still later 
founded Detroit, established a small 
fort here. Then came contests and 
skirmishes, not unmingled with massa- 
cres, until finally Mackinac, with all 
the other French strongholds on the 
lakes, was surrendered to the English 
in September, 1761. In 1763 began 
the conspiracy of Pontiac — a cotip de 
guerre wonderful for the sagacity with 
which it was planned and the rigor 
with which it was executed. Pontiac 
was the most remarkable Indian of all 
the lake tribes. He was a firm friend 
of the French, and, to aid their cause, 
arranged a simultaneous attack upon 
all the English forts in the lake coun- 
try. Eleven posts were assaulted and 
eight were captured. 

Fort Michilimackinac was among 
the latter. Three ofiicers and thirty- 
five men defended it. A band of 
Chippewas, while playing a game of 
ball just outside of the fort, knocked 
the ball, as if by accident, so that it 
fell inside the stockade; the play- 
ers rushed after it, and seizing their 
weapons from squaws, who had them 
concealed under their blankets, and 
had previousl}' entered the fort as a part 



A CRADLE OF HISTORY. 



59 



of the plot, they raised the war-whoop 
and fell upon the garrison. A lieuten- 
ant and fifteen men were killed, and a 
captain and the rest of the garrison 
were taken prisoners, to be ransomed 
aftenvards. 

A year afterwards, a 'treaty of peace 
having been made with the Indians, 
troops were again sent to raise the 
English flag over the fort. The pres- 
ent fort on Mackinac Island was built 
by the English in 1780. By a treaty 
of peace between Great Britain and 
the United States September 3, 1783, 
the island fell within the boundary of 
the United States, but under various 
pretences the English refused to with- 
draw their troops. By a second treaty 
concluded November 19, 1794, it was 
stipulated that the British should with- 
draw on or before June I, 1797. Two 
companies of U. S. troops arrived in 
October, 1796, and took possession, 
a previous treaty with the Indians hav- 
ing secured from them the post. Dur- 
ing the war of 18 12 the island was 
again surrendered to the British. After 
the victor}' of Commodore Perry on 
Lake Erie in 18 13, an effort was made 
to recapture it, but the troops sent 
were insufficient in numbers, and not 
until 1 8 14 was the American flag 



again hoisted over the Ciibraltar of 
the lakes. 

In savage minds Mackinac's superb 
position was appreciated, then the mis- 
sionaries made it their chief pulpit, 
next civilized warfare made it a coveted 
stronghold, later it became a commer- 
cial centre. I now refer to its connec- 
tion with the fur trade carried on bv 
John Jacob Astor, Esq., of New York. 
Mr. Astor organized the American Fur 
Company, with a capital of two mil- 
lion dollars. It had no chartered right 
to a monopoly of the Indian trade, 
yet by its wealth and influence it long 
controlled that trade. The outposts 
of the company were scattered through- 
out the whole west and northwest. 
This island was the great central mart 
to which the goods were brought from 
New York by way of the lakes, and 
from Quebec and Montreal by way of 
the Ottawa, Lake Nipissing and French 
River. From this point they were dis- 
tributed to all the outposts; while 
from all the Indian countries the furs 
were annually brought down to the 
island by the company's agents, 
whence they were sent to New York, 
Quebec or to Europe. This com- 
pany was organized in 1809 and con- 
tinued to do business until 1848. 




THE JOURNEY RESUMED. 



Sault Ste. Marie: Taking the 
left fork from Sault Junction, a 
picturesque run of forty-seven miles 
carries our tourists to Sault Ste. Marie 
where once again we touch ground 
pregnant with historical memories and 
associations deserving mention pres- 
ently. The town has several fine 
hotels, from whose balconies the visitor 
can watch the roaring, dashing, foam- 
ing rapids, with genuine Indians in the 
foreground, who, in their light canoes, 
skillfully dip the shining whitefish 
from its element. These Indian boat- 
men are serviceable in contributing to 
a sport which for dash and exhilarating 
effect cannot be excelled — " shooting 
the rapids" — an experience never to 
be missed and always to be remem- 
bered. It is a trip having more ap- 
parent than real danger. The Indian 
pilots have spent their entire lives on 
and about the rapids, know almost 
eyery rock in them, and so skillful have 
they become in the use of their pad- 
dles, that not one accident is recorded. 

The lake boats (carrying a com- 
merce greater than passes the Suez 
Canal), and continually in sight of the 
tourist as he sits on his hotel piazza, or 
walks the walls of the greatest locks 
in the world, are a source of unfailing 
interest and instruction. The locks 
in the foreground, the foaming rapids, 
the Canadian islands beyond, with 
rocks and evergreens striving for place, 
the old Hudson Bay Company's trad- 
ing post, and rising in the background 
the Canadian hills, emerald and bold, 
make a landscape well worth seeing 
and certain to be enjoyed. 

During the summer season there are 
almost innumerable excursions to be 
taken from the Sault — to Bruce Mines, 
to Point aux Pins, to Garden River, to 
Little Rapids and last, but not least, to 
*' go fishing." 



Here, too, connection is made with 
the Canadian Pacific Railway for all 
eastern points. This line, following 
the river and lake shore for miles, 
with only a short portage between the 
waters of Lake Nipissing and "Uta- 
wa's flowing tide," forms the most 
picturesque route to the eastern sea- 
board. To reach its tracks our train 
must cross the great International 
Railway bridge built at an expense of 
over half a million dollars. Here, too, 
connection is made with the steamship 
lines for all points on Lake Huron 
and the Georgian Bay, with the Lake 
Superior Transit Co. for Buffalo, the 
Lake Michigan & Lake Superior Co. 
for Chicago, and the boats of the 
Delta Transportation Co. for Mack- 
inac, Cheboygan and Petoskey. 

The name "Sault Ste. Marie" is 
French, and means the rapids or falls 
of the Saint Mary River. The name 
is as variously pronounced as there are 
letters in its composition. Often I 
have heard it called " Salt Ste. Mary " 
and even "Susan Mary." But the 
correct pronunciation is of course 
" So-Saint-Marie," with as little or as 
much accent on the "r-i-e" as you 
please, according as you wish to seem 
French, or a little French, or very, very 
French indeed. 

The traditions of the Ojibways in- 
dicate that the French traders earned 
the rare honor of reaching this point 
before the Jesuits. The latter first 
looked upon Sault Ste. Marie in 1641, 
naming it Sault de Gaston in honor of 
the young brother of the King of 
France. In 1660 Father Mesnard 
passed up the rapids into Lake Su- 
perior. Claude Dablou and James 
Marquette arrived in 1668, and 
founded a mission among the Indians, 
calling it Sault Ste. Marie. Thus it 
claims the distinction of being the 



THE JOURNEY RESUMED. 



6i 



oldest town in Michigan. In 1689 the 
mission was abandoned owing to the 
growing importance of Mackinac as a 
fur-trading centre. It was not until 
the middle of the next century that 
the little, shrinking hamlet, buried from 
a busier world amid trackless forests 
and beside untraveled seas, earned 
mention anew in the chronicles of the 
historians. 

In 1750 the French Governor of 
Canada, Jonquiere, gave to his nephew, 
Capt. de Bonne and Chevalier de Re- 
pentigny a grant of land bordering 
upon the rapids and river Ste. Marie 
six leagues, on condition that a pali- 
sade fort should be erected. This 
was built, and a farm was cleared and 
stocked with cattle, but the attempt to 
raise Indian corn was not successful. 
The chief purpose of the post was to 
prevent the Indians of Lake Superior 
from going down to Oswego where 
they received presents from the Eng- 
lish and were being seduced from their 
allegiance to the French. It had 
hardly been completed before the 
French and Indian war broke out, and 
Bonne and Repentigny left the post 
in charge of Jean Baptiste Cadeau. 
Upon the surrender of Mackinac to 
the British in 1762 a detachment un- 
der Lieut. Jeannette proceeded to take 
possession of the post at the Sault. He 
met with no opposition, but as, in De- 
cember of that year, fire destroyed 
the whole station, Cadotte was left 
in undisputed possession. During the 
Pontiac conspiracy Cadotte was 
friendly to the British, and his wife, 
who was of unusual force of character, 
prevented the re-capture of Alexander 
Henry, the only Englishman who sur- 
vived the massacre of Old Mackinac. 

In 1802 a British post was re-estab- 
lished here. During the war of 181 2 
a band was organized under John 
Johnston at Sault Ste. Marie to go to 
the assistance of the British at Mack- 
inac, who were being hard pressed by 
the Americans. The latter had their 
revenge, however. The schooner 
"Scorpion" in Jul}-, 1814, landed a 
force of infantry under Major Holmes 



at the Sault. He burned the trading 
post to the ground. Johnston and 
his company escaped down the Hay 
Lake channel. Governor Cass visited 
the place in 1820, and on his recom- 
mendation General Hugh Brady was 
sent in 1822 to found a garrison, which 
has since borne his name, Fort Brady. 
The discovery and development of 
the mineral resources of the Upper 
Peninsula of Michigan rendered the 
demands of Lake Superior so impera- 
tive and urgent that the construction 
of a ship canal around the rapids at 
Sault Ste. Marie became a practical 
necessity. Governor Mason in 1837 
advised the building of such a canal, 
and work was begun in the following 
year. The military authorities, how- 
ever, considered the work an infringe- 
ment upon the right of the General 
Government and an armed force drove 
the contractors off the ground. The 
construction was not resumed until 
1853. The contract called for two 
consecutive locks three hundred and 
fifty feet long, seventy feet wide and 
with a depth of thirteen feet of water 
and with proper approaches. On the 
2 1 St of May, 1850, this canal was 
completed at a cost of $999,802.46. 
It resulted in adding Lake Superior 
to that system of water-ways which is 
the pride of the northern border. 
Sault Ste. Marie lost much of its com- 
mercial prestige as a result, but in 1870 
the building of a new lock by the 
General Government gave it a new im- 
petus. This was completed in 1881, 
and now a third one has been ren- 
dered necessary by the increasing 
traffic, and Congress has just appro- 
priated more than $3,000,000 for its 
completion. This third lock will be 
eight hundred feet long inside of the 
gates, one hundred feet wide and 
twenty-one feet deep. A pier is to be 
constructed in front of Fort Brady, 
and the present pier extended 1000 
feet. A power canal is also being con- 
structed which will have Lake Su- 
perior for a supply basin and the 
source of a power estimated at over 
700,000 horse power and capable of 



62 DULUTH, SOUTH SHORE & ATLANTIC RAIL WAV. 



furnishing unlimited power for manu- 
factories. 

And so our journey ends. 

In concluding these notes of it, I re- 
main convinced that no traveler can 
conceive a more romantic and interest- 
ing picture than is presented by this 
region. Lake Superior was better 
known than any other of the great 
lakes two hundred and fifty years ago. 
On Cham plain's map, in 1632, it is 
tolerably perfect ; on Joliet's map of 
1673 it is more accurately outlined; in 
Father Marquette's map even the isl- 
ands and rivers are shown ; yet to- 
day miles upon miles of its picturesque 
shores remain unexplored and still 
offer unequalled attractions and de- 
lights to all interested in the beauties 
and mysteries of Nature. It is the 
womb of industries, cities and resorts 
that will constitute an empire scarcely 
suggested by the present outposts of 
progress. And yet it already is hemmed 
about with aspiring communities and 
gigantic industries, and on its confines 
are railways and water-ways of sufficient 



number and capacity to enforce devel- 
opment rapidly and permanently. 

You have seen, with me, what ap- 
peals this grand region makes to the 
tourist, the settler, the mechanic, the 
capitalist, the invalid, the sportsman 
— with rod or gun. Its invitations are 
to the world. There are few who will 
not feel repaid if they heed the call. 

It is in the nature of such a work as this 
that some of its lesser parts shall leave the 
author beholden to many minds and sources 
for hard facts, for technical notes, and even 
for casual comments, upon the places it 
would not have paid him or any one else to 
have visited and studied. We have mar- 
keted with discretion, and have usually 
paid for our purchases with the small coin 
of acknowledgment. 

If this is understood, then — as old Heylin 
said — 

" Heart, take thine ease — 
Men hard to please 

Thou haply mightst offend ; 
Though some speak ill 
Of thee, some will 

Say better — there's an end." 

The Author. 
N. Y., April 12. 




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